That timeline, framed around Election Day, has been widely challenged by the administrations top health officials, who have said that a vaccine approval by early November was improbable. Nine pharmaceutical companies issued a joint pledge on Tuesday that they would stand with science and not put forward a vaccine until it had been thoroughly vetted for safety and efficacy.
Brian Morgenstern, a White House spokesman, said in a statement on Thursday that President Trump, his administration and the scientific community are dedicated to delivering a safe and effective vaccine as quickly as possible while ensuring that any approvals will be based on data and thorough medical and scientific reviews by career professionals and an independent review board.
This false narrative that Democrats and some in the media are advancing, suggesting that politics is influencing approvals, is unconscionable and dangerous, he said.
Polling published on Thursday by the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that 62 percent of Americans are concerned that political pressure from the administration will lead the F.D.A. to rush a vaccine approval. Four in 10 adults said that the agency was paying too much attention to politics in reviewing and issuing approvals for therapies.
The F.D.A. is still defending its decision to issue an emergency use authorization for blood plasma at an event with the president, where Dr. Hahn exaggerated the effects of the treatment with misleading data he walked back a day later. White House officials had repeatedly pressed senior health officials to issue the approval.
In an interview on Thursday with the Economic Club of Washington, D.C., Dr. Hahn said that the totality of evidence was in support of that authorization.
I want to reassure the American people, we will revisit that decision when we have the data that justify re-looking at it, he said.read more
F.D.A. Regulators Publish Rare Self-Defense Amid Rising Vaccine Pressure
