“Fox & Friends” co-host Brian Kilmeade on Tuesday falsely claimed the FDA’s approval of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine came “out of nowhere,” and accused the Biden administration of using the announcement to distract from the crisis in Afghanistan.
Kilmeade did not tell his Fox News viewers that weeks ago, on August 3 – before Afghanistan fell to the Taliban – The New York Times reported the FDA was gearing up to deliver full and final approval to Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine “by the start of next month.”
The FDA’s “unofficial deadline is Labor Day or sooner, according to multiple people familiar with the plan. The agency said in a statement that its leaders recognized that approval might inspire more public confidence and had ‘taken an all-hands-on-deck approach’ to the work.”
In fact, medical professionals had been hammering the agency to grant approval even earlier.
“I just have not sensed a sense of urgency from the F.D.A. on full approval,” Dr. Ashish K. Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told The Times in an interview. “And I find it baffling, given where we are as a country in terms of infections, hospitalizations and deaths.”
Tuesday morning in his Times opinion column David Leonhardt blasted the FDA for “bureaucratic caution” and being “so slow to act.”
He goes on to berate the FDA:
Dr. Janet Woodcock, the acting commissioner, said three months ago that the vaccines “have met our high standards for quality, safety and effectiveness.” Early last month, Dr. Peter Marks, who oversees the approval process, wrote, “If we truly want our lives to return to normal, the fastest way to do so is simple — get vaccinated right now.”
The wait for full approval, then, was more about process than science.
On Tuesday Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade had a different opinion, conflating for viewers the “viral video of the Afghan airport” with the Biden administration’s fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
With the Fox News chyron reading “IMPACT OF POLITICS ON COVID DATA” giving credence to his claims, Kilmeade declared: “all of a sudden out of nowhere, the FDA is going to give full approval to the Pfizer vaccine, and that becomes a leak, and then that becomes an announcement.”
Except it wasn’t “all of a sudden out of nowhere.”
Watch: