In recent news, the Food and Drug Administration has granted full vaccine approval to Pfizer and BioNTech. Ever since the two leading pharma companies gave in their Biologics License Application to the agency in May, there was monumental pressure on federal officials to approve these vaccines.
According to the agency, the FDA team analyzed vaccine data that span over “hundreds of thousands of pages.” After careful evaluation, commissioner Janet Woodcock said that the vaccines provided by Pfizer were in accordance with the agency’s safety standards and efficient manufacturing processes.
With FDA’s full vaccine approval in play, authorities anticipate a much-needed rise in overall vaccination rates. Even though 60% of Americans have taken one shot of the vaccine, several others have remained reluctant to get their dose.
But full vaccine approval may just do the job and convince the U.S population about the efficacy and safety of these shots. In fact, this assumption is backed up by the results of a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
As concluded by the survey, 3 in 10 unvaccinated individuals said they would be slightly more willing to get a shot if a vaccine was fully approved by the FDA. However, Dr. Paul Offit claims that this isn’t a nuanced stance as waiting for complete approval is “more psychological than anything else.”
Nevertheless, FDA’s approval will pave the way for more vaccinations, especially amongst the corporate giants. Several big names like Walmart and Walt Disney have already asked their employees to be fully vaccinated in face of the rapidly spreading delta variant.
