A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to publicly disclose more information underpinning its authorization of COVID-19 vaccines, after failing to persuade the court to end the public records lawsuit.

In a ruling, on Friday, U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman in Fort Worth, Texas, ordered the agency to produce its “emergency use authorization” file to a group of scientists who wanted to see licensing information that the FDA relied on to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine.

“The COVID-19 pandemic is long passed and so has any legitimate reason for concealing from the American people the information relied upon by the government in approving the Pfizer vaccine,” wrote Pittman, appointed in 2019 by then-President Donald Trump.

The lawsuit, filed in late 2021, attracted attention after the FDA said it could take decades to process and disclose records to Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency, the group that brought the case.

The FDA declined to comment.