[skadamou]

Here is a good article that explains how drug approval is different in the US from Europe/UK [1]. Basically, the FDA has a reputation for being more thorough and for not taking the drug companies at their word and instead looking at the raw data from their trials. IDK if that is the best approach for approving the AstraZeneca vaccine but as this article explains, the FDAs approach did prevent thalidomide from being used in the US which was later found to cause birth defects in Europe and Canada.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/04/how-vaccine-ap...

[dcolkitt]

Thalidomide occurred more than fifty years ago. Do you think it's maybe possible that medical science has advanced a little bit since then?

Also the total number of birth defects that thalidomide ever caused over its entire lifecycle, is less than the number of Covid deaths per day. Relative to the number of lives that hang in the balance, thalidomide is a rounding error, and shouldn't be considered.

On net, there's absolutely zero evidence that European drug approval is dangerous vis-a-vis the US. European healthcare systems produce much better outcomes than the US. And they have for decades.