On 12 October, Dutch Member of the European Parliament Rob Roos tweeted a clip showing Pfizer President of International Markets Janine Small admitting, with a chuckle, that: “Regarding the question around whether we knew about stopping immunization before it entered the market, no.”
In other words, before Pfizer released its COVID vaccines to the public, it actually never tested whether such vaccine could actually stop the transmission of the virus. Mainstream news media, predictably, went into hyperdrive in “fact-checking” the supposed admission.
One assertion was that Small never made such admission. But the exchange was on video. Besides, Pfizer’s Director of Corporate Affairs Christina Antoniou in writing also admitted that: “The BNT162b2 (Comirnaty) trials were not designed to evaluate the vaccine’s effectiveness against transmission of SARS-CoV-2.”
Another defense to protect the vaccine narrative was to allege that Pfizer from the beginning never claimed that the vaccine could stop transmission. But this is belied by Pfizer itself having tweeted that its vaccine has been “authorized for emergency use to prevent COVID-19 in individuals” (26 January 2021) and that the “ability to vaccinate at speed to gain herd immunity and stop transmission” (14 January 2021).
Furthermore, various political leaders, from US President Joe Biden (13 May 2021 and 21 July 2021) to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (6 October 2021; also, the Canadian government website declared that “vaccination is one of the most effective ways to protect our families, communities and ourselves against COVID-19”), to news personalities like Rachel Maddow (29 March 2021) and infectious disease “expert” Dr. Monica Gandhi (20 March 2021), and — of course — Dr. Anthony Fauci (17 May 2021 and 2 June 2021) — all also claimed that getting vaccinated would protect one from being infected with COVID.
Besides, if it were true that COVID vaccines were never really expected to stop transmission of the COVID virus, then why was the COVID vaccine vehemently pushed to be made mandatory, for people’s employment and education and travel conditioned upon them being vaccinated? As Roos correctly pointed out: vaccine “passports and mandates placed millions of people outside society” without even any “evidence the vaccine would even stop the transmission.”
Finally, vaccine defenders allege that the point of a COVID vaccine is not to stop transmission (which, to reiterate, contradicts their entire vaccine marketing and advocacy push back in 2020 and 2021) but rather to mitigate the effects of the virus, i.e., to prevent serious illness from COVID. But this is belied by a) data showing that vaccinated people still get seriously or critically ill, even die, from COVID; b) growing reports of serious adverse effects from the vaccine; and c) admissions or studies showing the low lethality of COVID.
Of the latter, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel admitted that COVID is “going to be very similar to flu” (interview at the 2022 Yahoo Finance All Markets Summit, as well as “Moderna CEO Now Admits COVID-19 is Like Seasonal Flu – Says Only the Vulnerable Need a COVID Booster Shot,” Gateway Pundit, 18 October 2022).
More damningly, known epidemiologist Dr. John Ioannidis and his colleagues (“Age-stratified infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in the non-elderly informed from pre-vaccination national seroprevalence studies,” 13 October 2022) recently found that the COVID infection fatality rate (IFR) in non-elderly people was quite low and this was even before vaccination started:
So, we now have a picture of a vaccine unable to stop transmission, uncertain in whether it can mitigate serious or critical illness from COVID, for a virus with quite low fatality rate, and yet — as cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra pointed out — could result in serious adverse effects: “Until proven otherwise, it is likely that COVID mRNA vaccines played a significant or primary role in all unexplained heart attacks, strokes, cardiac arrhythmias and heart failure since 2021” (“Curing the pandemic of misinformation on COVID-19 mRNA vaccines through real evidence-based medicine — Part 2,” September 2022).
Which leads to this emphatic reiteration: it is not true (as was reported in media) that “public officials and employees, contractors, manufacturers, volunteers, and representatives of duly authorized private entities” are free from liability and cannot be sued for actions in relation to the “administration or use of a COVID-19 vaccine.” RA 11525 actually provides that they can be sued and held liable if proven that they acted with “willful misconduct and gross negligence” in using or administering COVID vaccines.
In fact, RA 11525 even set aside P500 million as compensation for any person “inoculated through the COVID-19 Vaccination Program” and because of it suffered “severe adverse effects” including “death, permanent disability or hospital confinement.”
Filipinos (or their family members) that suffered serious adverse effects arising from COVID vaccination are strongly encouraged to document their experiences and claim government compensation, or (as provided by law) prosecute and hold accountable those that forced or misled people into taking the COVID vaccines.
Jemy Gatdula is a senior fellow of the Philippine Council for Foreign Relations and a Philippine Judicial Academy law lecturer for constitutional philosophy and jurisprudence
Twitter @jemygatdula