Why the Mealy-Mouthed BS?

President Joe Biden wants you to know that he "strongly support[s] Secretary Austin’s message to the Force today on the Department of Defense’s plan to add the COVID-19 vaccine to the list of required vaccinations for our service members not later than mid-September." He says the vaccines are safe and effective, whether they're FDA-approved or not.

But if he really supports requiring members of the armed forces to accept vaccination for COVID-19, he's got the power to make that happen at any time, and the Secretary of Defense doesn't:

In the case of the administration of an investigational new drug or a drug unapproved for its applied use to a member of the armed forces in connection with the member’s participation in a particular military operation, the requirement that the member provide prior consent to receive the drug in accordance with the prior consent requirement imposed under section 505(i)(4) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (21 U.S.C. 355(i)(4)) may be waived only by the President. The President may grant such a waiver only if the President determines, in writing, that obtaining consent is not in the interests of national security. -- 10 US Code § 1107(f)(1)

The Secretary of Defense can request that the president so order (section (f)(3)(a) of the above-cited US Code provision), but it's up to Biden and always has been. So instead of "strongly supporting" the Secretary has no power to do, if Biden wants it done he should stop playing PR games and sign the damn order.

No, I don't have an opinion on whether he should order it. But I do have a history that's involved here.

In 1991, I was threatened with court-martial should I refuse to accept an anthrax vaccine shot from a box clearly marked EXPERIMENTAL -- DO NOT USE ON HUMANS. So I accepted it.

In 1998, on the premise that that vaccine may have played a role in "Gulf War Syndrome," Congress passed the law above, granting the president, and only the president, authority to override consent requirements for experimental vaccines.

Why doesn't he exercise that authority? I think he's hoping FDA will fully approve one or more vaccines this month so his signature isn't on an order requiring troops to accept an experimental vaccine. That way if everyone who gets vaccinated grows a second head or something, he's less on the hook for it.