- President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. on Monday accused Pfizer of deliberately waiting until after the election to announce the promising early results of its COVID-19 vaccine trials.
- Trump said that both the US Food and Drug Administration and the Democrats “didn’t want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later.”
- Trump Jr. suggested the timing of Pfizer’s results, which suggested the vaccine was more than 90% effective, was “nefarious.”
- But Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla on Monday told CNN that Pfizer had simply released the results “when the science told us the data was available.”
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President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. claimed on Monday that Pfizer deliberately waited until after the election to announce the promising early results from its COVID-19 vaccine’s clinical trials.
They offered no evidence for their claims.
Pfizer said Monday its experimental coronavirus vaccine had succeeded in the final stage of clinical trials: The shot was found to be more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19, it said, a milestone in the fight against the pandemic.
Both Trump and Trump Jr took to Twitter to question the timing of Pfizer’s announcement, made six days after Election Day.
“The FDA [US Food and Drug Administration] and the Democrats didn’t want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later,” Trump tweeted Monday night.
He added that Pfizer "didn't have the courage" to issue the statement earlier.
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 10, 2020
His son, Trump Jr, called the timing of Pfizer's announcement "pretty amazing," and suggested he thought the timing was "nefarious."
—Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) November 9, 2020
He also shared an article by The Daily Mail quoting 500 academics who said official data was "exaggerating" the risk of COVID-19.
"Amazing how this is coming out now. It's almost as if it was always exaggerated on purpose!" Trump Jr. tweeted.
Trump had previously claimed that a vaccine would be ready by Election Day. In mid-October, Pfizer said it planned to submit its COVID-19 vaccine for FDA authorization in late November.
Trump also tweeted that if President-elect Joe Biden had been in the White House, "you wouldn't have the Vaccine for another four years, nor would the FDA have ever approved it so quickly."
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Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla first learned of the trial results on Sunday, he told CNN in an interview on Monday, adding that he hadn't yet seen the data yet himself.
Though Pfizer had looked at the data several times throughout the trial, it didn't have enough infections in its test group to draw meaningful conclusions until Sunday, Bourla said.
When questioned about the "remarkable" post-election timing of the results, Bourla said Pfizer had simply released them "when the science told us the data was available."
Initially, Pfizer had planned to conduct its interim analysis when it had 32 cases of COVID-19 among its trial participants, he added. However, the company later revised this to a minimum of 62 cases. When the company carried out its first interim efficacy analysis on November 8, there were 94 cases.
Trump celebrated Pfizer's announcement
Trump's tweets Monday night were in stark contrast to other ones he had sent about Pfizer's announcement throughout the day.
He had previously called the trial results "SUCH GREAT NEWS!"
—Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 9, 2020
Vice President Mike Pence also tweeted about the development, but misleadingly presented Pfizer's milestone as an accomplishment of the Trump administration.
Pfizer had developed its vaccine "thanks to the public-private partnership forged by President Trump," Pence tweeted.
But Pfizer was never part of Operation Warp Speed, the government's initiative to accelerate the development and distribution of a vaccine, and said it had never taken any money from the US government to aid its research.