The FDA Is Holding Up a Cheap Vaccine as COVID Deaths Surge | Jon Miltimore

https://fee.org/articles/the-fda-is-holding-up-a-cheap-vaccine-as-covid-deaths-surge/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily
To date, nearly 2 million people worldwide have died of (or with) COVID-19. Meanwhile, government lockdowns intended to slow the spread of the virus triggered the largest economic contraction since the Great Depression.
That a bureaucracy delayed the distribution of a vaccine, and continues today to delay approval of a vaccine cheaper and more durable than alternatives, during a deadly pandemic raises important ethical questions.
Does the government have the right to deny people vaccines or medicines that can save them?
How many lives could have been saved if the government had not used coercion to prevent individuals from purchasing a vaccine that could have protected them?
Did the risks of fast-tracking a vaccine outweigh the costs of delaying approval?
What is the actual purpose of bureaucracy?
Many might assume that the purpose of the FDA is to protect Americans and save lives. Unfortunately, this is not the nature of bureaucracies. Their purpose is not to save lives, but to follow processes.
But it’s also a matter of basic incentives, as Tabarrok explained in an article for the Independent Institute. He points out that although drug reviewers at the FDA are immune from legal liability, they are not immune from humiliation during congressional hearings, TV exposés, and newspaper denunciation.
This causes them to err lopsidedly on the side of caution. But for many, such “caution” proves to be lethally dangerous.