Let me get this straight.
The same FDA now demanding “gold-standard” placebo-controlled trials for all new vaccines – including seasonal COVID updates for children and healthy adults – is also offering 1-to-2 month fast-track drug approvals to companies deemed “aligned with national priorities”?
You can’t make this up. But apparently, the FDA just did.
According to a June 17 AP article, FDA Commissioner Marty Makary announced a new policy to issue “national priority vouchers” to select pharmaceutical companies. These vouchers will grant faster reviews, extra FDA communication, and looser submission timelines for products that promote “the health interests of Americans.”
This new process is even faster than the agency’s current accelerated review pathway for life-threatening diseases, which typically takes about six months. The new timeline? One to two months.
And here’s the kicker: these faster reviews may not even require randomized controlled trials – long considered the gold standard of scientific research.
Meanwhile, under the same leadership, all new vaccines must now meet that gold standard, with a stricter policy for COVID shot updates that mandates additional testing, even for seasonal changes.
So which is it? Is gold-standard science back—or only when it serves the politics of the moment?
This isn’t science-based policy. It’s ideologically convenient regulation.
Let’s be honest: RFK Jr. and Marty Makary aren’t leading with scientific integrity. They’re using science selectively to reinforce their worldview. Vaccines? Scrutinize them to death. Drugs backed by big pharma and flagged as “national priorities”? Fast-track them.
That is not a coherent public health policy. That’s regulatory theater.
This isn’t about scientific consistency. It’s about ideological convenience:
- Vaccines are politically charged—especially among RFK Jr.’s base. So he imposes stricter rules to signal caution and “freedom.”
- Drugs (especially for rare or chronic conditions) are politically safer to fast-track. So they’re loosened to gain industry favor and public approval.
And that phrase – *“aligned with national priorities”- *is intentionally vague. It gives political discretion over what gets fast-tracked. That’s dangerous.
Who even knows what “national priorities” are right now? Who is deciding that? Not a neutral body or independent panel, that’s for sure.
And it gets worse.
RFK Jr. has spent his career bashing the pharmaceutical industry – and now he’s overseeing an FDA that’s literally creating new avenues for pharma companies to gain accelerated access to approvals through ambiguous political alignment?
Where is the outrage from the “anti-pharma” crowd now?
This is everything the pharmaceutical lobby has pushed for over the last decade. Faster approvals, less oversight, and privileged communication with regulators. And now it’s being served on a silver platter—so long as you’re aligned with the administration’s murky definition of “national interest.”
This isn’t reform. It’s exploitation.
And the consequences? Real lives. Real risks. Real erosion of public trust in a system that should be grounded in transparency, rigor, and accountability.
Makary and RFK Jr. can’t have it both ways. Either we’re committed to scientific integrity across the board, or we admit that this new policy is a political tool dressed up in medical urgency.
Because if we truly care about public health, we should be just as wary of fast-tracked, under-tested drugs as we are about poorly tested vaccines.
But that’s not what this is about.
This is about control. About signaling. About creating the illusion of reform while quietly handing even more power to the same industry they claim to resist.
We need to call this what it is:
A contradiction wrapped in a policy wrapped in a press release.
And we deserve better.
Links to include:
- AP News article – June 17, 2025
- Background on FDA accelerated approval: FDA.gov
- RFK Jr.’s statements on placebo vaccine testing: NPR
- Critiques of Makary’s trial methodology: Public Health Policy Journal
