[WSJ] Lawmakers are investigating whether Pfizer waited to share results of the Covid vaccine in 2020 until after that year’s presidential election, based on new allegations that a former Pfizer scientist has said he was part of an effort to "deliberately slow down" the testing, according to a new letter from the House Judiciary Committee.The House panel is seeking information from Pfizer and from the scientist, Philip Dormitzer, after learning he allegedly told colleagues in 2024 at a subsequent job he was worried he would face an investigation of his role in the vaccine’s release and asked to be relocated to Canada.
Dormitzer has since denied that he or anyone at Pfizer tried to delay the vaccine, and has said that his comments to colleagues at drugmaker GSK, where he took a job in 2021, have been misinterpreted. GSK first reported Dormitzer’s alleged comments to federal prosecutors in New York late last year, leading them to launch a probe into Pfizer’s vaccine timing.
According to GSK’s account to the House panel, Dormitzer told colleagues at the British drugmaker last year that three of the most senior people at Pfizer R&D were "involved in a decision to deliberately slow down clinical testing so that it would not be complete prior to the results of the presidential election that year."
The GSK employees also recounted that Dormitzer "was clear that this was not a situation of delaying disclosure of completed results but was a situation of slowing down results before disclosure became necessary," according to the letter.
GSK’s report to the house panel alleges that in asking for the move to Canada, a "visibly upset" Dormitzer told a GSK human resources official that the timing of the release "wasn’t a coincidence."
A lawyer for Dormitzer, who has since left GSK, didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.
Amy Rose, a Pfizer spokeswoman, said the company had received the letter and "would respond directly to the committee." Rose said the covid vaccine development process was "driven by science and guided by the U.S. FDA back in 2020." She added that "theories to the contrary are simply untrue and being manufactured."
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