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Justice Department lawyers representing the FDA note in court papers that the plaintiffs are seeking a huge amount of vaccine-related material – about 329,000 p
by adolph 5y ago
Justice Department lawyers representing the FDA note in court papers that the plaintiffs are seeking a huge amount of vaccine-related material – about 329,000 pages.
The FDA proposes releasing 500 pages per month on a rolling basis, noting that the branch that would handle the review has only 10 employees and is currently processing about 400 other FOIA requests.
[Plaintiffs] argue that Title 21, subchapter F of the FDA’s own regulations stipulates that the agency “is to make ‘immediately available’ all documents underlying licensure of a vaccine."
- giantg2 5y agoCongress passes all sorts of laws that need enforcement or implementation, yet the agencies are not staffed to enforce/implement them accordingly. Still, we clammer for more laws to "fix" things, even when the current ones are impossible to handle.
- xmprt 5y agoI'm always dumbfounded that the IRS isn't the most well funded branch with the best accountants in the country with the resources to actually go after some of the richest people in the country. Given how poorly funded they are right now, each employee should be able to net more than enough additional revenue to pay their salary. Genuine question: How did nothing happen after the Panama papers were leaked? What literally all of that legal or was it because the IRS didn't have time to investigate all the cases?
- stjohnswarts 5y agoMy guess is that mega-rich people (most of congress) prefer that the IRS not be more litigous and well-funded than it already is because a significant number of them have doubts about how legal their tax activities actually are. Also they certainly don't want to anger their donors and super PACs
- pas 5y agobecause the Panama papers was mostly a non-event for US folks. FATCA was already in full force. that a few celebrities who have money had accounts there ... means nothing. it was a big thing for countries where the leak uncovered (or "proved") corruption.
- TomSwirly 5y ago> FATCA was already in full force. FATCA fixed nothing at all. > it was a big thing for countries where the leak uncovered (or "proved") corruption. How can you possibly say that the US is not in that category?!
- pas 5y agoThere's nothing to "fix". Because US corruption is not hidden. There's nothing to uncover really. It's done in plain sight. There are two dedicated people for that for each state on the federal level. There are complete industries sustained by nothing but endless subsidies. Already super favorable tax regulations, already great ways to store wealth in ways that are conveniently inaccessible to public eyes. Of course if by fix you mean putting an end to economic rent-seeking, then for that the way forward is healthier markets and/or "whatever the Nordic countries are doing".
- ethbr0 5y agoI didn't dig into the FOIA submitters here, but I can say there are intentional, organized efforts by some people opposed to the vaccine to delay the rollout via paperwork requests. We had some anti-vaccine literature emailed around at work that purported to be a legal form to submit to anyone pressuring you to take a vaccine. Instead of, you know, politely opting out, it went straight down the rabbit hole of requesting every document that was legally required (e.g. full list of vaccine ingredients, verified chain of custody from point of manufacture, full study results including any reactions, etc). I'm all for skepticism, but at some point, there's just being a dick and wasting the time of others trying to do their best in government bureaucracies.
- newsbinator 5y agoDevil’s advocate / steel manning: “If you get to force me to put a possibly harmful thing in my body then I get to force you to do a ton of unreasonable paperwork about it” I imagine if I had a problem with vaccines or with this particular vaccine (for which I was gladly first in line in my cohort), then I’d likely use every loophole at my disposal to delay or prevent being forced, pressured, cajoled, shamed, etc into getting one.
- iratewizard 5y ago> I'm all for skepticism, but I don't appreciate it when people are skeptical of beliefs I hold strongly
- ethbr0 5y agoSkepticism pursued in a manner that overly impacts others is morally wrong. If someone doesn't want to be vaccinated -- refuse vaccination and deal with the consequences. Don't request (to use my example, not the OP) 100s of pages that you have no intention of reading, the production of which consumes valuable resources during a public health crisis.
- iratewizard 5y agoI'm skeptical that you know their intentions with the foia results. Why is the only possibility log jamming in your mind?
- stjohnswarts 5y agoWow, that would take a very kind of special person who could just go through that much information, even if it was computer aided review.