posted August 13, 2021 08:45 AM            

White House threatens FDA chief’s job over vaccine approval

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hours before the Food and Drug Administration authorized the first COVD-19 vaccine late Friday, a high-ranking White House official told the agency’s chief he could face firing if the vaccine was not cleared by day’s end, two administration officials said.

The FDA granted emergency use for the vaccine produced by Pfizer Inc. and its German partner BioNTech. The decision kicks off a massive vaccination effort to help defeat the pandemic. President Donald Trump said late Friday that Pfizer had “passed the gold standard of safety” and hailed the vaccine as “one of the greatest scientific accomplishments in history.”

But the move followed tense discussions between White House chief of staff Mark Meadows and FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, according to a senior administration official who was familiar with the call but was not authorized to discuss private conversations.

posted August 13, 2021 08:47 AM            

https://apnews.com/article/election-2020-donald-trump-mark-meadows-coronavirus-pandemic-elections-d93bd92727e89e451a2be73ec3de8ede

WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the agency responsible for authorizing COVID-19 vaccines said Tuesday that it would take the time needed to “get this right,” despite increasing pressure from President Donald Trump to speed up the process.

“No one at FDA is sitting on his or her hands. Everyone is working really hard to look at these applications and get this done,” Stephen Hahn, the head of the Food and Drug Administration, told ABC in an interview on Instagram Live. “But we absolutely have to do this the right way.”