Via America’s Lawyer: President Trump has been pushing for expedited vaccine approvals, leaving health experts questioning whether he’s prioritizing efficiency over efficacy and safety. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: The Trump administration is paying big bucks to drug companies to rush a COVID vaccine that, chances are, is not very effective. This is crazy, man. They’re giving billions of dollars to drug companies right now. Ordinarily it takes 10 years, 10 years to develop a vaccine. If everything’s perfect, you can do it in four years, but that doesn’t stop the Trump administration. They say, ah, no, we’re going to pump billions of dollars into companies that have never even worked on a vaccine before. What’s your take?
Farron Cousins: Well, my immediate reaction reading this story before coming here today was, you know, Pfizer, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, J & J, Moderna, I thought I’m pretty sure you’ve been in court on the opposite side of each and every one of these.
Mike Papantonio: I, I’ve been, I’ve been in trial against everyone, in trial, not just in court but in trial against Pfizer, in trial against Johnson & Johnson.
Farron Cousins: And, and so that’s what made me think, you know, looking at who is doing this, and who’s getting billions from this administration to do it. Would you, would you trust if one of these companies came up to you right now and said, all right, we’ve got the COVID vaccine. Will you take it?
Mike Papantonio: Is that a rhetorical question?
Farron Cousins: And I know we’ve seen, we have seen a lot on the left, people freak out and say, I’m not going to take a vaccine because just, you know, if Trump says it’s safe.
Mike Papantonio: Because Trump says, yeah.
Farron Cousins: But it’s not, it’s not about Trump. He has no real say in that. It’s these companies that we can’t trust, never have, never will because of their histories.
Mike Papantonio: Everyone of these companies have been sued so many times for defective products. I’ve lost count. And you think the FDA is there to protect you? The FDA is being now urged to, to give a pre-approval of the vaccine before we have any idea what the clinicals actually look like.
Farron Cousins: And, they’ve got a little secret panel of, I think, 10 to 15.
Mike Papantonio: Yes.
Farron Cousins: People.
Mike Papantonio: Who work for the industry, basically.
Farron Cousins: Right. And we don’t know who they are, what they’re deciding, but they’re the ones who are going to tell us whether or not this vaccine is good to go. And I don’t trust a single one.
Mike Papantonio: And, and they make a lot of money working for the industry.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
