With public faith in FDA continuing to decline, the agency published draft guidance stating that a single animal study could be sufficient to demonstrate a vaccine’s effectiveness. ICAN’s attorneys submitted a comment in opposition to this draft guidance which comes shortly after FDA approved a COVID-19 booster based on trials performed solely in mice.
Back in 2007, an FDA advisory committee met to re-review the safety, effectiveness, and dosing of phenylephrine (Sudafed PE), a drug which has been on the market for nearly 50 years. At the 2007 meeting, the committee considered its efficacy data “borderline” but nonetheless voted 11-1 in favor of its efficacy, although it did vote in favor of additional studies being done.
On September 12, 2023, the same FDA committee, possibly attempting to bolster its image as a tough regulatory watchdog, voted unanimously to label phenylephrine “ineffective” as a nasal decongestant. The committee noted “significant methodological and statistical issues with the design and conduct of the original studies submitted to and evaluated by the Panel…. All but one evaluated extremely small sample sizes, none adequately controlled for bias … and none performed appropriate sample size calculations,” and observed, “After a thorough review of all the available evidence, it is also possible that there may have been bias and/or data integrity issues at [at] least one study center … where five of the seven positive oral PE studies were conducted.”
If FDA follows the panel’s advice, the drug will be pulled from the market, despite the long-standing indications of its inefficacy, most of which were known in 2007. It’s too bad the committee didn’t perform this “thorough review” at any point prior to the last 50 years, before Americans wasted billions of dollars on an ineffective treatment (nearly $2 billion in 2022 alone) that apparently only exposed them to potential harm without benefit.
Ironically, on September 11, 2023, just one day before the committee met to clamp down on this “ineffective drug” with shoddy clinical trials, FDA issued draft guidance stating that, under certain circumstances, a manufacturer can show evidence of effectiveness for a biological product with a single clinical investigation conducted in animals, giving the example of “[w]hen the product is a preventive vaccine, and there is a well-established model of infection for a relevant infectious disease, and use of the vaccine in the animal model demonstrates prevention of disease.” Notably, this occurred shortly after FDA authorized the newest Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, which are as Dr. Paul Offit notes, “new product[s],” even though Pfizer tested this brand-new shot only in mice—not humans.
Thus, on December 18, 2023, ICAN, through its attorneys, filed a formal comment in opposition to the draft guidance. In it, ICAN points out that, despite urging by ICAN in its November 2020 petition, FDA refused to amend the Phase III trials of the COVID-19 vaccines to ensure they met the required standard of “substantial evidence” of effectiveness. As a result, we now have generations of new vaccines being approved based on those original ineffective products.
Now, FDA is doubling down on its malfeasance by authorizing COVID-19 vaccines without human trials while simultaneously creating guidance to excuse its lack of oversight. As ICAN’s comment notes:
[I]t is apparent that FDA is tailoring guidance based on the vaccine manufacturers’ clinical trials instead of requiring that these trials comply with what any reasonable licensing agency should and would require. FDA has seemingly forgotten that its function is to regulate the pharmaceutical industry, not rubber stamp it. The Draft Guidance does not provide oversight, and even worse lends illegitimacy to the FDA when there is clearly insufficient evidence to support authorization or licensure. This is especially troubling for products that will be injected into healthy humans—including babies, children, and pregnant women.
Rest assured that ICAN’s legal team will continue to serve as a watchdog for FDA and ensure it is held accountable for improperly wielding its regulatory authority and fulfilling its responsibilities.
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You can read more about ICAN’s work serving as watchdog for our federal health agencies at the links below:
