Former Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration Scott Gottlieb targeted the federal government on Friday for allegedly withholding the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine.
“They are stifled and I think the government has acknowledged that they are doing this,” Gottlieb said in a morning interview with MSNBC. In part, they say they want to retain the second dose for everyone who receives a first dose. I don’t think that’s the right decision. I think they should lean forward and try to get more doses in people now and have some confidence that production will keep up. “
Several governors complained this week that their states are not receiving the Pfizer vaccine shipments they had been waiting for, including those in Florida, Illinois and Washington. Pfizer said in a statement Thursday that “millions” of vaccine doses were available, but that it had not received a delivery order from the federal government.
Gottlieb, who served as FDA commissioner from 2017-19 and is currently on Pfizer’s board of directors, said he believes the feds are trying to “manage” the supply, noting that the Department of Health and Human Services has acknowledged that 7 million doses of vaccine were on hand.
“By the end of this weekend, there will be many more than that,” Gottlieb said. “It simply came to our notice then. I think he’s trying to manage the supply chain. I think he’s trying to make Moderna and Pfizer equal. I think they might be worried that if they put too much vaccine in the supply chain, maybe some of them could go unused.
“I don’t know exactly what their thinking is,” he added. “It simply came to our notice then. My advice would be to try to get as many gunshots as possible now, because we are at the peak of the epidemic right now or we are entering the peak. “
Governor Illinois JB Pritzker (D) said Wednesday that he believes the reduction means it will take much longer for Americans to receive the vaccine than estimates initially suggest.
“This development is likely to reduce our state-designed Pfizer deliveries by about half this month,” Pritzker said. “The same is true of the rest of the nation.”
Watch above via MSNBC.
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