- Pfizer is under investigation after drug company GSK allegedly tipped off federal prosecutors, claiming Pfizer delayed announcing the success of its COVID-19 vaccine until after the 2020 election. Former Pfizer scientist Phil Dormitzer, now with GSK, reportedly shared this information, which he denies.
- President Donald Trump accused Pfizer of withholding vaccine results to impact his re-election chances.
- Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said in 2020 that the data came in days after the election and was released shortly thereafter.
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Vaccine company Pfizer allegedly withheld positive news about its COVID vaccine until after the 2020 presidential election was decided, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Who made the allegations?
British drugmaker GSK reportedly tipped off federal prosecutors in Manhattan in November 2024. The drugmaker claims Pfizer withheld announcing the success of its COVID-19 vaccine until just days after President Donald Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden.
Prosecutors are now investigating the allegation.
Have these allegations been made before?
A former Pfizer scientist named Phil Dormitzer, who now works for GSK, allegedly told his GSK colleagues the information, which he disputes ever doing.
President Trump has long claimed that Pfizer delayed its COVID-19 vaccine results to impact his chances at re-election when critics claimed he mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic.
“And Pfizer and others even decided to not assess the results of their vaccine. In other words, not come out with a vaccine until just after the election,” Trump said on Nov. 20, 2020. “That’s because of what I did with favored nations and these other elements. Instead of their original plan to assess the data in October, they were going to come out in October, but they decided to delay it because of what I’m doing, which is fine with me because, frankly, this is just a very big thing.”
When did the company say it received the data?
Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla told USA Today in November 2020 that the COVID-19 vaccine data came in two to three days after Election Day.
The election took place on Nov. 3, and Bourla claims the company received the data on the fifth or sixth. Biden was declared president on Nov. 7.
Bourla told USA Today the independent monitoring committee overseeing the results received them on Nov. 8.
Pfizer then released them the following day, Nov. 9.
Dormitzer’s attorney has spoken to prosecutors, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter.
Dormitzer released a statement saying, “My Pfizer colleagues and I did everything we could to get the FDA’s emergency use authorization at the very first possible moment. Any other interpretation of my comments about the pace of the vaccine’s development would be incorrect.”
Prosecutors have not interviewed any Pfizer officials, so it’s unclear what charges could be filed.
