Anthony Fauci, the U.S. government's top infectious disease specialist, slammed the U.K.'s drug regulator, saying that it rushed to clear the COVID-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE.
The U.K. watchdog, called the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, said Wednesday that it had approved the Pfizer vaccine. That means the shot will likely be used in Britain before the U.S. and the European Union.
"They're great, they're good scientists," Fauci said in an interview with CBS News, according to a transcript. "But they just took the data from the Pfizer company and instead of scrutinizing it really, really carefully (t)hey said, 'OK, let's approve it. That's it.'"
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has been under fire from President Donald Trump because no COVID-19 vaccines were approved before the election in which he was defeated by President-elect Joe Biden. FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn and other health officials have said that a careful, transparent approval process is key to ensuring public trust in the vaccine that will be required for a successful immunization campaign.
The U.K. "kind of ran around the corner of the marathon and joined it in the last mile," Fauci told CBS. "They really rushed through that approval."
