More on bureaucratic language

My wife and I got the Janssen (AKA Johnson&Johnson) vacinne today. No significant side effects at this point.

But I want to talk about the paperwork. The fact-sheet that I was required to acknowledge receipt of included language like

There is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved vaccine to prevent COVID-19.

The Janssen COVID-19 Vaccine is an unapproved vaccine that may prevent COVID-19.

And several more variations on the same theme.

Now, on one hand the point is clear: the FDA has not completed its (lengthy) approval process and has just given permission to use these things because the pandemic represents an emergency situation.

But on the other hand the expectation is that hundreds of millions of Americans (not to mention billions of people in other parts of the world) will receive one or the other of these vaccines. So what is the difference between the current situation and approval? Nothing outside the structure of the bureaucracy's regulatory structure.

Not that I think there is anything malicious or even dishonest about this business. It's just that organizations create their own cognitive structure and then live in them even when they lose fidelity with the real world. In other cases that can be a problem.