Executives with the drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna have declined an invitation to meet at the White House.

New York, December 8 (RHC)-- Executives with the drugmakers Pfizer and Moderna have declined an invitation to meet at the White House for what Donald Trump is billing as a “vaccine summit.”  The event appears to be an effort by Trump to pressure the Food and Drug Administration to rapidly approve the drug companies’ COVID-19 vaccines. 

The FDA is currently reviewing data from Pfizer’s clinical trials and could allow emergency use of its vaccine by the end of the week.

This comes as The New York Times reports the Trump administration turned down an offer by Pfizer last summer to lock in supplies of its coronavirus vaccine, giving other countries a chance to get in line ahead of the U.S. for the drug’s limited initial supply.

Meanwhile, there are new questions about the rollout of vaccines in the U.S. The Wall Street Journal reports Pfizer expects to ship half as many doses of its vaccine as planned in 2020, and the medical news site STAT reports frontline U.S. healthcare workers think the Trump administration’s pledge to vaccinate 20 million people in December seems unrealistic.