The Food and Drug Administration was ordered by a federal judge Thursday to release tens of thousands of more pages a month about the data used in its approval process for Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
Public Health and Medical Professionals sued the FDA under a Freedom of Information Act that demanded more transparency, Reuters reported last month.
The FDA—citing staffing issues—agreed to release 12,000 pages by the end of January and a “minimum” of 500 pages a month going forward, the report said. The group found that number unacceptable and said there are more than 400,000 pages of data needed, which could mean it may be 2097 before all the documents are made public. U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman called the group’s FOIA request “of paramount public importance,” and demanded that the FDA release 55,000 pages a month—which means all information should be available within eight months, Reuter’s Jenna Greene, who had been following the suit, reported.
“Even if the FDA may not see it this way, I think Pittman did the agency—and the country—a big favor by expediting the document production,” she wrote.
The FDA and Department of Justice did not immediately respond to an after-hours email from Fox News about the order.
Aaron Siri, the lawyer representing the group, called Pittman’s ruling a “great win for transparency and removes one of the strangleholds federal ‘health’ authorities have had on the data needed for independent scientists to offer solutions and address serious issues with the current vaccine program.”
Siri pointed out that Pittman quoted President John F. Kennedy who said, a “nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”
