Rita Panahi: Pfizer must set the record straight on vaccine’s efficacy

If a senior Pfizer executive’s claims to the European Parliament are accurate, then it’s imperative they set the record straight by producing their data.

If the reports of events in the European Parliament are accurate then our politicians and health bureaucrats have some serious questions to answer.

A senior Pfizer executive appears to have made shocking admissions about what the company knew of their Covid-19 vaccine’s efficacy, particularly its effectiveness in stopping transmission, before releasing the drug.

Pfizer’s president of international developed markets Janine Small was testifying before the European Parliament’s special committee on COVID-19 earlier this week, after Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla pulled out of what was expected to be a tough line of questioning.

It didn’t go well.

Asked if the Pfizer vaccine was tested for its effectiveness in stopping transmission of the virus. Small responded: “Regarding the question around did we know about stopping the immunization (sic) before it entered the market? No. We had to move at the speed of science to really understand what was taking place in the market.”

Pfizer executive Janine Small testifying before EU Parliament.

Say what now? Put to one side the absurd conflating of “speed of light” and “speed of science”, and focus on what appears to be an admission that they had not bothered to see if the vaccine stopped transmission.

Entire nations built their policies around the understanding that the vaccine did just that. Why else would you force vaccine mandates and have young, healthy people be vaccinated just so they can work, study or travel, if not to stop them transmitting the virus to the vulnerable? Earlier this year we had the Victorian premier tell us to get our booster shot so we could stop infecting others. “It’s only with three doses that you’ll be prevented not just from serious illness but from getting this virus, this omicron variant, and therefore giving it to others,” Dan Andrews said in January.

After questioning the senior Pfizer executive, an EU parliamentarian posted a video of the exchange to Twitter which accumulated more than 10 million views. He added: “This is scandalous, millions of people worldwide felt forced to get vaccinated because of the myth that ‘you do it for others’, now this turned out to be a cheap lie.”

If this exchange was in anyway misunderstood or misrepresented then it’s imperative for Pfizer to set the record straight by producing their data showing what they knew when their vaccine went to market.