Obviously our government would never pass a law like FOIA today, but fortunately Congress is also too paralyzed to ever repeal it.

Thanks to FOIA, we have some hope of getting honest data about coronavirus cases and vaccines from our government. But rest assured, they will kick and scream as much as possible before forking it over.

Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency is a professional organization of scientists and doctors. They recently filed a FOIA request for the data used by the Food and Drug Administration to justify authorizing the Covid-19 vaccines.

Now, FOIA requires federal agencies to reply to requests within twenty days, though they can take longer if it actually takes that long to find and assemble the requested data. Well, last month, the FDA responded to the group's request. They said that it would take them fifty-five years to meet their request for information. Yes, you heard that right. Fifty-five years. The FDA apparently could decide to approve these vaccines for "emergency use" in a matter of weeks last year, but can't produce the same information for others any earlier than 2076.

Now, to put that figure in perspective. Fifty-five years in the other direction is 1966. That's before the moon landing. It's the early years of the Vietnam War. It's only one year after Medicare started. The years since 1966 have seen every single Super Bowl ever played. They contain the entirety of the personal computer revolution. That's how much time the FDA claims it needs to compile some documents requested by concerned citizens, about the approval process of a vaccine that is barely a year old.