- A UK watchdog has accused Pfizer of damaging the pharmaceutical industry's reputation by promoting an unlicensed COVID vaccine on X, formerly Twitter, breaching regulatory codes. GB News
- The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority was referring to a Nov. 2020 tweet by a US-based Pfizer official when the platform was still called Twitter. Fierce Pharma
- The tweet, which claimed Pfizer's vaccine candidate was "95% effective in preventing COVID-19," was retweeted by one of its senior UK-based employees and four other UK staffers. Fierce Pharma
- Last month, the Authority ruled that the drugmaker misused social media to "misleadingly and illegally" advertise its vaccine. However, the firm termed the tweet "accidental and unintentional." The Telegraph
- In Oct. 2022, Pfizer admitted that it hadn't tested its COVID vaccine's efficacy to prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from person to person before its market release. Associated Press (LR: 3 CP: 5)
- However, Pfizer later clarified that the vaccine's clinical trial was never intended to cover its impact on transmission. It was designed only to evaluate the vaccine's efficacy in preventing disease caused by the COVID virus. Associated Press (LR: 3 CP: 5)
Narrative A:
- It's all too easy to accuse Pfizer of occasional mistakes years after things turned normal post-COVID. The company, which once swiftly produced a COVID vaccine and achieved record-breaking sales to pull the world back from the brink of a pandemic catastrophe, now faces a natural market downturn. This only highlights the unpredictable and thankless nature of the health industry.
WALL STREET JOURNAL (LR: 3 CP: 5)
Narrative B:
- Pfizer clearly played along with attempts to exaggerate its COVID vaccine's efficacy, violating consumer protection laws. It may deny the claims, but there's no escaping responsibility when its own senior executives spread such disinformation on social media — especially at a crucial moment during the pandemic. The world's courts must take the company to task.
GUARDIAN (LR: 2 CP: 5)
Nerd narrative:
- There's a 50% chance that per the median of the first three published peer-reviewed studies, the vaccine effectiveness of three doses of Pfizer against hospitalization caused by Omicron will be at least 88.5%, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
METACULUS (LR: 3 CP: 3)