So here's the thing: the FDA has already given full approval to the vaccine. They've approved it. And yet, somehow we're still having this discussion about whet

So here's the thing: the FDA has already given full approval to the vaccine. They've approved it. And yet, somehow we're still having this discussion about whether it's ok to give a third dose, after several months, despite good evidence that doing so would often be helpful. We can argue about the data, but a reasonable person, looking at the data, could come to the conclusion that there is good reason to give a third dose of a vaccine the FDA has already approved. So where's the ability of physicians to exercise their expert discretion? Why are we even having this discussion? Contrast this with the opioid epidemic, where lives and communities were being destroyed wholesale. Why wouldn't it be appropriate for the FDA to step in and temporarily put greater restrictions on the medications? They regulated dispensation of pseudoephedrine and do all sorts of things. Why not do it with opioids? When there's actual serious harm, the FDA shouldn't do anything because the drug has some legitimate uses sometimes, but when there's evidence of very little harm, the FDA should leverage its complete authority to prevent it, despite evidence it might be of public health benefit? I can give other examples of drugs where in the peer-reviewed literature there are review articles concluding that a medication is completely safe to be offered over-the-counter, but conclude that it shouldn't be so as to not establish a precedent. The problem is this inconsistency: what real authority -- not legally inherited authority, but actual authority, in the sense of moral authority -- does the FDA have if it bans substances like cannabis, all the while allowing alcohol (which has much more serious consequences), letting an opioid crisis burn like wildfire, and then putting the hammer down on a third dose of a pharmaceutical it has already approved? Think of it this way: is it any wonder there are so many vaccine skeptics when the FDA behaves as if a third dose of a vaccine it has already approved is so dangerous physicians shouldn't be allowed to use their discretion to prescribe it? It's no surprise that there's such a crisis of skepticism about expertise in this country. The credentialing associated with the expertise is empty of meaning anymore, and it is constantly overstepping its role.