“You may choose to look the other way, but you can never say again that you did not know.”
— William Wilberforce
Story Highlights On Nov. 9, 2020, Pfizer released preliminary Phase 3 clinical trial data indicating that its experimental mRNA COVID-19 vaccine is 90 percent effective, triggering a big surge in stock price. Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla immediately sold 60 percent of his company stock, realizing a gain of $5.6 million in what the company called […]
On Sept. 8, 2020, nine pharmaceutical companies working on COVID-19 vaccines signed a pledge saying they would not submit their experimental vaccines to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) unless they were shown to be both safe and efficacious in the Phase 3 human clinical trials.1 2 3 4 5 The pledge, signed by […]
On Oct. 14, 2020, Pfizer, Inc. of New York City, New York announced it had received approval by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to enroll children in the Phase 3 human clinical trial on its experimental messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid) BNT162b1 vaccine for COVID-19. The trial, which last month was expanded to include adolescent […]
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is asking federal officials to include children in COVID-19 vaccine trials.1 On September 29, 2020, Sara Goza, MD, president of the AAP, wrote a letter addressed to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar and Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Steven Hahn, MD stating, […]
If you look at the human clinical trials that have been conducted this year by drug companies developing experimental vaccines for COVID-19, the participants in those trials have all been “healthy adults.” Take, for example, Moderna’s Phase 1 clinical trial for its mRNA-1273 vaccine, which included 45 healthy adults 18 to 55 years old. The same […]
Numerous polls have been conducted during the last few months asking Americans if they would get a COVID-19 vaccine were it approved by the U.S. government and offered to the public. Polls in April-May 2020 showed that about half or more of those surveyed said they would get the vaccine. More recent polling, however, has […]
When Moderna, Inc. announced on May 18, 2020 the results of a Phase 1 human clinical trial for its experimental mRNA-1273 vaccine for COVID-19, the biotechnology company said the vaccine had produced no “serious adverse events” (SAEs) among the 45 people who participated in the trial and that it considered the vaccine to be “generally […]
Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on Monday announced two of their experimental coronavirus vaccines received Fast Track designation from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, meaning the FDA may decide on an approval within six months. If a vaccine candidate gets the green light, the companies said they expect to make up to a […]
In clinical trials of the experimental messenger RNA (ribonucleic acid) COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b1), which is being developed by Pfizer, Inc. of New York and BioNTech SE of Mainz, Germany, adverse reactions have occurred in more than 50 percent of the adult participants. The Phase 1/2 human trials of BNT162b1 vaccine, which were conducted May-June 2020, […]
In an interview with the JAMA on June 2, 2020, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said that while he was “cautiously optimistic” about the effectiveness of the vaccines being developed for COVID-19, he was concerned that any protection the vaccines may provide might only be temporary. […]