UK Body Chides Pfizer Employees' "95% Effective" Covid Vax Tweet
The Facts
The UK pharma watchdog has accused Pfizer of damaging the industry's reputation by promoting an unlicensed COVID vaccine on X, breaching regulatory codes.
The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PCMPA) was referring to a November 2020 tweet by a Pfizer US official on what was then Twitter.
The Spin
It is easy to haul up Pfizer for stray mistakes years after things turned normal after the pandemic. The company, which once swiftly produced a COVID vaccine and achieved record-breaking sales to pull the world back from the brink, now faces a downturn. This only highlights the unpredictable and thankless nature of the system.
Pfizer clearly played along attempts to exaggerated its COVID vaccine's efficacy, violating consumer protection laws. It may deny the claims, but there is no escaping responsibility when its own senior executives spread such disinformation on social media, and that, too, at a crucial moment during the pandemic. The world's courts must take the company to task.
