Pfizer Exec Concedes COVID-19 Vaccine Was Not Tested on Preventing Transmission Before Release

A health care worker in Israel prepares a dose of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in a file photo. Ahmad Ghababli/AFP via Getty Images

A Pfizer executive said Oct. 10 that neither she nor other Pfizer officials knew whether its COVID-19 vaccine would stop transmission before entering the market last year.

Member of the European Parliament, Rob Roos, asked during a session: “Was the Pfizer COVID vaccine tested on stopping the transmission of the virus before it entered the market?”

Pfizer’s Janine Small, president of international developed markets, said in response: “Did we know about stopping immunization before it entered the market? No ... we had to really move at the speed of science to really understand what is taking place in the market.”

Roos, of the Netherlands, argued in a Twitter video Oct. 10 that following Small’s comments to him, millions of people around the world were duped by pharmaceutical companies and governments.

“Millions of people worldwide felt forced to get vaccinated because of the myth that ‘you do it for others,'” Roos said. “Now, this turned out to be a cheap lie” and “should be exposed,” he added.

The Epoch Times has contacted Pfizer for comment.

What Was Said

The Food and Drug Administration wrote in late 2020 that there was no data available to determine whether the vaccine would prevent transmission and for how long it would protect against transmission of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.

“At this time, data are not available to make a determination about how long the vaccine will provide protection, nor is there evidence that the vaccine prevents transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from person to person,” the agency specifically noted.

Meanwhile, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, around the same time, said his firm was “not certain” if those who receive its mRNA vaccine will be able to transmit COVID-19 to other people.

‘'I think this is something that needs to be examined. We are not certain about that right now,” Bourla told NBC News in December 2020 in response to a question about transmissibility.

Former White House medical adviser Dr. Deborah Birx in June revealed that there was evidence in December 2020 that individuals who received COVID-19 vaccines, including Pfizer’s, could still transmit the virus.

“We knew early on in January of 2021, in late December of 2020, that reinfection was occurring after natural infection,” Birx, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator during the Trump administration, told members of Congress this year.

‘Not Going to Get COVID’

A number of officials in the United States and around the world had claimed COVID-19 vaccines could prevent transmission. Among them, President Joe Biden in July 2021 remarked that “you’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”

President Joe Biden speaks, flanked by White House Chief Medical Adviser on COVID-19 Dr. Anthony Fauci, during a visit to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., on Feb. 11, 2021. Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

Chief Biden administration medical adviser Anthony Fauci in May 2021 said in a CBS interview that vaccinated people are “dead ends” for COVID-19, suggesting they cannot transmit the virus. “When you get vaccinated, you not only protect your own health and that of the family but also you contribute to the community health by preventing the spread of the virus throughout the community,” Fauci said.

Two months later, in late July of that year, Fauci said that vaccinated people are capable of transmitting the virus.

In the coming months, Fauci, Biden, CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky, and others pivoted to say the vaccine prevents severe disease, hospitalization, and death from COVID-19.