Waiting for regularly scheduled meeting
while people die.
The FDA could hold an emergency meeting to extend vaccine eligibility to 5-11 year olds, but anti-virals that could save patients wait until the scheduled Nov 30 meeting for consideration.
Merck and Pfizer have pills that can cut deaths to near zero. Studies were cut short to get them into use ASAP.
But the FDA can’t be rushed.
Could it be that they just don’t want people to have alternatives to vaccination?
Is this an exception to Hanlon’s Razor?
Tidewater News and Opinion Forum 
RE: “Could it be that they just don’t want people to have alternatives to vaccination?”
We should entertain the possibility, however difficult it might be to prove. Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek has been pounding away for months on the topic of the “Covidocracy.” More radical venues link the pandemic with the Great Reset proposal of the World Economic Forum, and there are certainly some strange correlations between the rise of the surveillance state since 9/11 and various of the totalitarian elements of the pandemic response.
Without endorsing conspiracy theories, we should at least consider them, if only on the principle that being paranoid doesn’t mean there is no one out to get you.
LikeLike
Who is “they”? Pfizer? Moderna? J&J? Merck? Fauci?
Soros?
Sorry, but conspiracies thrive on this kind of tepid acceptance of the absurd notion that “they” (whoever “they” are) are so secretive we don’t know who “they” are.
“Everybody knows that” to paraphrase the theorists.
LikeLiked by 1 person
‘They’ clearly refers to the FDA.
Please do tell us the innocent explanation.
The FDA had continuous access to the Pfizer study. The advisory committee ended the trial early because the results were so good it would be unethical to delay deployment of the drugs.
Yet the FDA has not moved up its originally scheduled review, letting the drugs(to his credit, Biden has preordered millions of doses) sit on the shelf while people die.
The alternative to intentional delay to push vaccination is incompetence and callousness on a level almost impossible to comprehend even for a Libertarian who expects little.
LikeLike
RE: “The advisory committee ended the trial early because the results were so good it would be unethical to delay deployment of the drugs.”
The way I heard it was a little different. Paxlovid was so effective that it would have been unethical to continue the study using placebo recipients.
Of course, that amounts to the same thing.
LikeLike
The FDA consists of thousands of people.
Again, who is “they”.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Start firing at the top and work your way down.
This is unacceptable. There is no function in the drug section of the FDA that cannot be carried out better by the medical journals and productiability companies.
LikeLike
Who?
If we are ascribing malfeasance to an organization, there needs to names with specific charges. If not, it is just another conspiracy without (or maybe with…) Italian satellites.
You either have the goods or just spreading lies.
Your choice.
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, the FDA(the drug section) as a whole is worse than nothing. They add zero value to health care. End it.
LikeLike
RE: “You either have the goods or just spreading lies.”
That’s unconscionable. What “lies” are you accusing Dr. Tabor of spreading?
LikeLike
That there is a conspiracy to push vaccines. Same as you are intimating.
Conspiracies are the bane of democracies. Which is why the right is gleefully fostering and nursing them. I think the leaders on the right are jealous of autocrats. Not because they necessarily believe in them but the Trump cult does, and fear of being primaried or even getting death threats among the GOP elected officials is all they care about.
So you understand, I deplore conspiracy mongers and their minions. They, more than anyone else, are traitors to freedom and our nation
Period.
Is that clear enough?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Still waiting for that innocent explanation for leaving people to die by the day while they take their Thanksgiving Holiday.
Can they really be that callous? Coercion for vaccines is really a kinder assumption than the alternative.
LikeLike
BTW, have you any evidence that is not the case? If not then how is it a lie to pose the question?
LikeLike
Conspiracies are consuming us as a nation
Keep it up and you are not helping.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t like conspiracies either but I am still waiting on another explanation
LikeLike
RE: “Sorry, but conspiracies thrive on this kind of tepid acceptance of the absurd notion that ‘they’ (whoever ‘they’ are) are so secretive we don’t know who ‘they’ are.”
I find generic disapproval of conspiracy theories to be very odd. Refusing to consider a conspiracy theory just because it is a conspiracy theory is like walling off a part of one’s brain to prevent it from functioning.
Here it is factually true that FDA approval of a Covid therapeutic is delayed without any apparent good reason. It makes sense to wonder why, and it makes no sense to dismiss speculation just because it it speculative.
LikeLike
So we have folks that after 100’s of millions of doses, massive data showing efficacy and safety of vaccines still don’t like “experimenting” with their bodies.
So we get a bit of caution on this pill and suddenly it is ok to sell the product.
In other words, no matter what happens, the conspiracies will abound.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Perhaps I didn’t make it clear
People are needlessly dying every day as a result of this delay.
There is a huge difference between people being reluctant to get vaccinated because they might get sick and getting lifesaving treatment to people who ARE sick.
LikeLike
They wouldn’t be dying every day if they took the stupid shot.
LikeLike
Vaccination certainly improves your odds, but between 20and 40% of deaths today are among vaccinated people, primarily the elderly and compromised.
Wouldn’t it be a good thing to have a pill that reduced your chance of death from a breakthrough infection to zero?
LikeLike
What proof is there that the pill would be beneficial to those who have been vaccinated but have serious underlying conditions (including just being old), that even the pills would benefit?
You are hopeful, and I am as well. But your constant hypocrisy about the safety and efficacy of drugs is disconcerting.
LikeLike
Plaxovid, the Pfizer pill, was specifically tested for high risk groups and was 89% effective on preventing hospitalization and 100% effective at preventing death. It works in concert with prior vaccination, slowing the virus’s replication and giving the immune system a head start.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59178291
LikeLike
Hypocrisy requires inconsistency when it is convenient.
I have been perfectly consistent regarding the FDA and COVID treatment. Treatment decisions should be left to patients acting on the advice of their doctors. The CDC can advise physicians, but in the end, the choice must be left to the patient.
The FDA has no right to intervene in that decision.
Regarding COVID treatment, the disease has two(maybe 3) phases, the viral replication phase and the inflammation phase. There is also a coagulation phase that overlaps the late 1st and early 2nd phase.
Treatment for coagulation and inflammation is generally agreed upon, but the FDA has opposed every intervention in the critical viral replication phase.
ANY antiviral(from HCQ to Plaxovid) in the 1st 5 days is better than nothing, as even slightly slowing the virus helps. NONE of them are of much use after 5 days. Waiting until the patient needs hospitalization squanders that opportunity. The FDA’s insistence on hospital based double blind studies consistently miss that opportunity and that blindness to primary care experience has cost hundreds of thousands of US lives.
That has been my position from the beginning, based on 40 years in health care, and yes, as a dentist, but during the AIDS epidemic, everyone in health care followed viral science very closely.
LikeLike
“Hypocrisy requires inconsistency when it is convenient.”
You certainly have that down to a science.
What is wrong with reviewing the studies? SHould they just blindly accept what the drug companies say at face value? How does trust but verify sound?
LikeLike
People are dying every day who could have been saved.
The drugs should be available immediately to those who want to accept the risk.
But unnecessary delay kills hundreds more than any undetected problem ever could.
LikeLike
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/public-global-health/583198-fda-calls-merck-covid-19-pill-effective-but-points-to
Not as effective as previously reported and potential higher risks for birth defects and other problems.
Yep. Let’s jump on the train.
LikeLike
Plaxovid is by Pfizer
LikeLike
Reporting is similar for BOTH. Inconvenient for you, but true.
LikeLike
The Merck drug has proven to be disappointing, Plaxovid has not.
You may be confused and so may be the press, but doctors aren’t and they need this drug to be available sooner, not later.
LikeLike