New Hahn-era texts show the ex­tent of the Trump White House­'s in­volve­ment in vac­cine EUA process

In the lead-up to the FDA’s is­suance of its first Covid-19 vac­cine EUA to Pfiz­er in Dec. 2020, there was a lot of po­lit­i­cal grum­bling and le­git­i­mate con­cern that the White House might try to speed up the au­tho­riza­tion process to help for­mer Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s re­elec­tion cam­paign.

On the flip side, how­ev­er, there was con­cern of the op­po­site, that the vac­cine’s EUA might be un­nec­es­sar­i­ly de­layed, lead­ing to more deaths so as to avoid any mis­con­cep­tion that the de­ci­sion was po­lit­i­cal­ly mo­ti­vat­ed.

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