Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, who recently announced that a fourth COVID-19 vaccine dose will be necessary for everyone who has already gotten three doses, was awarded $24.3 million in personal financial compensation in 2021. In addition to his $1.69 million salary, which increased by 15 percent, Bourla took home a cash incentive of $8 million, […]
On Jan. 21, 2022, a Federal District Court in Texas temporarily blocked COVID-19 mandate for federal workers issued by the Biden administration.1 Judge Jeffrey Brown’s ruling applies nationwide.2 The federal worker mandate was issued on Sept. 9, 2021. According to the White House, as of December 2021, 97 percent of federal employees had been vaccinated […]
Perhaps influenced by the lifting of COVID-19-related restrictions by several European countries—starting with Denmark—during the past two weeks, the United States seems to be on the verge of following Europe’s lead in declaring the pandemic over. In a recent interview with the Financial Times, White House chief medical advisor and director of the National Institute […]
On Dec. 8, 2021, the White House’s chief medical advisor, Anthony Fauci, MD, suggested he believed it was likely the U.S. government would change the definition of what it meant to be “fully vaccinated” to include booster shots, as well as the original two-shot regimen of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna/NIAID COVID-19 biologics or one shot […]
Among many surprising developments during this pandemic, the most stunning has been the questioning of naturally acquired immunity after a person has had the COVID-19 disease. We have understood natural immunity since at least the Athenian Plague in 430 BC. Here is Thucydides: Yet it was with those who had recovered from the disease that the sick […]
Two senior officials of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have stepped down from the COVID vaccine review team at a critical time in the approval process. While the FDA did not cite a specific reason for the departure of two veteran officials, Endpoints News reports that widespread frustration in the regulatory agency began […]
Two of the FDA’s senior vaccine officials are stepping down. The news comes as boosters and children’s shots are being weighed by the department. In a letter sent to staff and obtained by BioPharma Dive, the agency’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research announced the departure of Marion Gruber and Phil Krause, two of the […]
One of the main rationales for why some U.S. health officials are referring to COVID-19 as a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” is the claim that 97 percent of Americans who have been hospitalized with symptoms of the illness are unvaccinated. During a White House press briefing on July 16, 2021, the director of the U.S […]
“If you’re vaccinated, you’re protected. If you’re unvaccinated, you’re not protected.” These words, or some slight variation of them, are increasingly being used by U.S. government officials to encourage Americans to get vaccinated for COVID-19. In a July 4, 2021 interview on ABC’s “This Week,” White House COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients was asked, “What does […]
July 4, 2020 marks the 244th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. With much of the country still shut down, large gatherings banned and “non-essential” businesses closed with required masking indoors and outdoors in some states, it is hard to imagine firework displays, neighborhood barbeques and other annual Independence Day traditions being […]