During a phone interview on Thursday with Fox Business Network’s “Mornings with Maria,” former President Donald Trump slammed the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to temporarily pause the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine due to concerns of blood clots.
Trump, who was behind Operation Warp Speed to accelerate the development of vaccines, said that since the number of cases of clotting was “very minuscule,” the FDA should have slapped a warning on the vaccine instead of pausing it.
“[A]t the time it came up, there were 8 million shots, and there were six cases, which as they say, was far less than women’s birth control pills, than Tylenol, than, you know, almost anything. It was very, very minuscule,” Trump outlined. “I would have put a warning on it or something on just that particular vaccine, but I certainly wouldn’t have paused it and gotten front-page news all over the world, and then people don’t want it. And it probably even affects the others because there’s a big situation with a lot of people who don’t want to take the vaccine. Well, this played right into their hands. And they want me to do public service messages and everything about everybody taking the vaccine.”
“Look, I guess in a certain way I’m the father of the vaccine because I was the one that pushed it,” he continued. “You know, to get it done in less than nine months was a miracle. Fauci said it would take three to five years. He thought it was something that just wouldn’t be that effective because it would take so long to get. I pushed the FDA like they have never been pushed before. I wouldn’t exactly say they’re in love with me. … This a very bureaucratic organization. I pushed them like they’ve never been pushed before, and that’s why we have it. When they did the pause on Johnson & Johnson, I thought that was a very, very stupid thing to do.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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