In recent weeks, amid broader questions about the surge of the Delta coronavirus variant in the US and the vaccination campaign to counter it, journalists have periodically pressed health officials as to when the Food and Drug Administration might fully approve the vaccines, which had been administered, up to now, under emergency-use authorization. Two weeks ago, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked Francis Collins, the director of the National Institutes of Health, whether the FDA “needs to be doing more”; Collins assured him that the agency is working “twenty-four seven” on the approval process, then stressed that there is already “incredible evidence” for the vaccines’ safety and effectiveness, and urged the unvaccinated to get a shot immediately. “If you’re on the fence, get off the fence,” Collins said. “Go.”
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Source: What the Pfizer-approval story says about our media ecosystem | Columbia Journalism Review