South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman introduced legislation on Thursday that would force the Food and Drug Administration to release all documents related to COVID-19 vaccinations within the next 100 days, according to Fox News.
”How does a vaccine that receives approval in 108 days now require 55 years just to release information?” Norman, a Republican, told the network. ”If the Biden administration is hellbent on forcing these vaccine mandates on us, then the public has every right to know how and why this vaccine got approved in such a short amount of time.”
The FDA requested an extension on releasing data regarding the COVID vaccines for up to 55 years last month after a group of 30 scientists and medical professionals from Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT) sued it in September.
PHMPT submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for all files related to vaccine data after the FDA approved the Pfizer vaccine for children ages 16 and older in August, but the agency denied it.
”Reviewing this information will settle the ongoing public debate regarding the adequacy of the FDA’s review process,” the group said in court filings. ”Releasing this data should also confirm the FDA’s conclusion that the Pfizer vaccine is safe and effective and, thus, increase confidence in the Pfizer vaccine.”
Department of Justice lawyers representing the FDA argued that the plaintiff’s data request included 329,000 pages of documents, roughly 80,000 per month, which need to be scrubbed for security purposes, Fox News reported.
The FDA argued that it does ”not have the personnel or resources” in its FOIA office to process the request. In response, it proposed that 500 pages a month be released instead.
The branch responsible for releasing the information to PHMPT has just 10 employees, and it would take until the year 2076 to receive all documents at the proposed FDA rate of 500 a month.
