The Johnson & Johnson vaccine pause has left former President Donald Trump irked, alleging political bias, and calling it a "terrible disservice to the world."
"The Biden administration did a terrible disservice to people throughout the world by allowing the FDA and the CDC to call a 'pause' in the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine," Trump wrote in a statement from his Save America PAC, suggesting politics at play, including a biased support for the Pfizer vaccine by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
"The results of this vaccine have been extraordinary but now its reputation will be permanently challenged. The people who have already taken the vaccine will be up in arms, and perhaps all of this was done for politics or perhaps it's the FDA's love for Pfizer."
Trump's statement pointed back to the political play of Pfizer and the FDA in withholding official approval of the vaccine until after President Joe Biden declared victory in the 2020 presidential election.
"The FDA, especially with long-time bureaucrats within, has to be controlled," Trump's statement continued. "They should not be able to do such damage for possibly political reasons, or maybe because their friends at Pfizer have suggested it.
"They'll do things like this to make themselves look important. Remember, it was the FDA working with Pfizer, who announced the vaccine approval two days after the 2020 Presidential Election."
Trump added he was well aware of Pfizer's alleged political bias, something he had long rebuked amid the presidential election campaign and Operation Warp Speed.
"They didn't like me very much because I pushed them extremely hard," Trump's statement concluded. "But if I didn't, you wouldn't have a vaccine for 3-5 years, or maybe not at all. It takes them years to act!
"Do your testing, clean up the record, and get the Johnson & Johnson vaccine back online quickly. The only way we defeat the China Virus is with our great vaccines!"
A statement from Johnson & Johnson does acknowledge an issue with the safety of its vaccine.
"The safety and well-being of the people who use our products is our number one priority," J&J wrote in a statement amid reports of the pause. "We are aware of an extremely rare disorder involving people with blood clots in combination with low platelets in a small number of individuals who have received our COVID-19 vaccine.
"In addition, we have been reviewing these cases with European health authorities. We have made the decision to proactively delay the rollout of our vaccine in Europe. We have been working closely with medical experts and health authorities, and we strongly support the open communication of this information to healthcare professionals and the public."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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