ICYMI - demonstration outside the FDA this Sunday and coordinated twitter storm on Monday.

[Dan Elton]

Hello, 

I am organizing a demonstration outside the US FDA this Sunday from 2-4 pm to demonstrate against their delays in approving the AstraZeneca, J&J, & Novavax vaccines (see Facebook event for details). 

Then on Monday, February 22nd at 1pm EST we are planning a coordinated social media campaign to get #UnclogTheFDA and related hastags to become a trending hashtags on Twitter (see Facebook event and LessWrong post for details). We have a special Discord server here for planning. 
 
Here are some petitions to sign: 

• Change.org petition asking the FDA to approve AstraZeneca now!

• Change.org petition asking Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan to liberate the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine and save lives

Here is some further reading: 

• Myself on how we can judge the likely safety and effectiveness of new vaccines even prior to any study data coming in. 

• Myself on what vaccines should be approved now and the deadly FDA slowness. 

• Garret Jones, Ph.D. on the political pressure on the FDA to slow walk the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

• Prof. Alex Tabarrok on the case for approving AstraZeneca now

• Prof. Tyler Cowen on why FDA approval is the constraint on getting vaccines in arms, not manufacturing.  

Finally, I am under no illusion about the difficulty of changing the FDA. Reform typically takes years. I am fighting mainly to raise awareness and hopefully to have reforms implemented at the FDA before we get hit by another pandemic or a biological weapons attack. Maybe we can think people to think about reforms like a parallel Free to Choose Medicine track as well (here's a great podcast on that). 

Regards,  
-- Dan