Hahn Reassures Public in TV Appearance

Interviewed on WILX in Lansing, MI, FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn continued his efforts to reassure the public that there has been no political pressure on FDA to speed a vaccine approval and that only scientific data will be used to make such a decision. He reiterated that the speed in vaccine development has come from conducting all the necessary tasks in parallel rather than sequentially and insisted that no corners are being cut.

Hahn also said the agency is working to approve Covid treatments as they become available and to ramp up testing capacity.

Despite Hahn’s continuing insistence that there is no political pressure affecting agency pandemic decisions, HHS 8/20 said that as a part of the Trump administration’s regulatory streamlining, laboratory-developed tests, including those for Covid-19, would no longer need premarket authorization from FDA. The announcement came without any notice and comment rulemaking.