Originally Posted by
Rjk
Well having spent about 4 minutes reading up on it, it seems that there is a LOT of data, and the FDA need to check it for confidential data and redact it prior to being released.
If you took part in a clinical trial I'm sure you wouldn't want your medical information being released as part of a FOI request afterwards.
They say they can do 500 pages a month, and they have been told to work at a much faster rate than that by a judge back in January - 12000 pages a month, which will massively slash the time it will take. So this "75 year" stuff doesn't even appear to be relevant any more.
They have a team of 9 people in the department that will be carrying out this work - 2 of whom are new staff and unable to work as quickly as the more experienced members. Presumably they will have to massively scale up this department in order to be able to comply with the latest ruling.