Fauci criticizes UK’s Pfizer vaccine move: ‘They really rushed through that approval’
By
Jordan Williams - 12/03/20 02:25 PM EST
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Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious disease expert, said on Thursday that the United Kingdom “really rushed through” its approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The U.K.
approved Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine on Wednesday, making it the first Western nation to approve a coronavirus vaccine.
“In all fairness to so many of my U.K. friends, they kind of ran around the corner of the marathon and joined in at the last mile,” Fauci told CBS correspondent Major Garrett on “The Takeout” podcast. “I think that would be a good metaphor for it … because they really rushed through that approval."
Fauci further said that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is “the gold standard of regulation,” and applauded the agency for not rushing to approve a vaccine, which he said would only fuel skepticism about it.
“We have enough problem with people being skeptical about taking vaccine anyway, if we had jumped over the hurdle here quickly and inappropriately to gain an extra week or a week and a half, I think that the credibility of our regulatory process would be damaged," he said. . . .
