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>this information.

what information...exactly what information?

if I file a FOIA request for the presidents tax return and it gets denied for a legal exemption is that the government hiding something?

There is a FOIA process, there are things that are exempt from disclosure - that is part of the law as well.

FDA follows a process, outlined here: https://phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/023-FDA-Appendi... (page 5+)

In reality, the plaintiffs are the ones slowing the process of releasing this information down by being unreasonable. it means FDA is reviewing and denying OBVIOUSLY privileged or exempt documents that the group only asked for to then waive about the number of documents that the FDA 'wOuLdN't DiScLoSe'.

If you are playing quantitative games with FOIA request document numbers you are acting in bad faith. When you are trying to scope as many exempt documents as possible into your request so you can later use that number to push your narrative, you are acting in bad faith. Because when you aren't interested in the content of the documents, nothing you are doing has anything to do with serious efforts at transparency.

You gotta realize that these gov agencies give bad faith arguments to say that they can't release records routinely. These government agencies know full fucking well that these records will be responsive to FOIA and yet they still don't make efforts to make it accessible and releasable to the public. Same goes to Pfizer. It's our responsibility as a public to make sure important information like this isn't being hidden.

Their litigation is aggressive, there's no doubt there. But does that mean the information isn't any less important? Back when the pandemic started, a lot of FOIA nerds were hesitant to submit FOIAs because of the issues around quarantine, WFH etc. At the end though, transparency is such a fundamentally important part of our understanding of our own governance that it's important that we don't hold back on important issues like this.

It doesn't even really matter too much if the organization won't use the docs themselves. Their litigation is making it available to the public. If they're not going to look through them, someone will.

We are not talking about a request for POTUS tax returns.

The process is defined by the Freedom of Information Act itself and not the Department of Health and Human Services. Here is the act https://www.justice.gov/oip/freedom-information-act-5-usc-55... and by law there only 9 exemption categories that allow a US agency to withhold information. They are: 1. classified information for national defense or foreign policy 2. internal personnel rules and practices 3. information that is exempt under other laws 4. trade secrets and confidential business information 5. inter-agency or intra-agency memoranda or letters that are protected by legal privileges 6. personnel and medical files 7. law enforcement records or information 8. information concerning bank supervision 9. geological and geophysical information

> We are not talking about a request for POTUS tax returns.

You're right, we're talking about random private citizens medical information, which falls under 6. That's what the majority of the pages requested are, and why it'll take so long to redact them: they're mostly clinical notes about people like you and me. The relevant information that won't be redacted is already publicly accessible.

People like you and me who willingly participated in a public funded study. If Pfizer did not anonymize the data from the beginning that is foolish at best.
…they wouldn’t be allowed to anonymize data they submit to the fda

Honestly this discussion is insane, this entire discussion presumes a bunch of people selling snake oil are more credible than the people trying to make sure drugs are safe. The “well the fda screws up sometimes” is only useful to that argument if you have already picked the narrative you want. Otherwise it’s like saying I’d rather go to see with a cannibal I have never met than my younger brother because he bit me once when we were kids.

Dont worry, Federal agencies aren't shy to redact.

Or perhaps they’ll be “anonymized” which is tech’s go to term for running roughshod over our secrecy.