Editor's Note: Below is a complimentary note written by Hedgeye Health Policy analyst Emily Evans. If you'd like to learn more about subscribing to Emily's research email sales@hedgeye.com.
Mama says, "Stupid is as stupid does." ~ Forrest Gump
Politics. Things not to do on a date:
- Brag about your employer’s influence over a large federal regulatory body;
- Offer confidential company information about research that is the subject of Congressional oversight inquiries; and
- Wonder out loud if your date is taping your conversation.
Things not to do when it turns out you were right about #3.
- Claim you were lying to impress said date.
If, like the Pfizer Communications team, you dismiss alternative media out-of-hand, you may have missed the Project Veritas video released last week. In it, a gentleman named Dr. Jordan Walker, tells his date all about what many have interpreted as gain-of-function research at PFE.
As it happens, inquiry into aggressively researching viruses has been the subject of bipartisan concern, especially if the American taxpayer makes it happen. A recent report by the Office of the Inspector General put the imprimatur of objectively on what is sure to be a focus of oversight hearings.
More so now that Dr. Walker has so clearly, to some explained (I could not get past how silly he sounded) why more viruses are great for the EBITDA line. We simply cannot sit around and wait for some bats to cook them up in the caves of southern China.
Policy. To prove one of Dr. Walker’s points – the pharmaceutical tail is wagging the regulatory dog – the Vaccine and Related Biologic Products Advisory Committee met on Thursday.
It was an all-day affair to get input on “harmonizing” Covid vaccines. The FDA wanted to know what the Adcomm thought of a strain selection process similar to what is done for the flu, avoiding all that pesky clinical trial, data collection and reporting.
Adcomm members, helpless in the face of an FDA that has and will ignore their advice, made pleas for more granular data, more information on adverse events and more attention paid to non-mRNA platforms. None, however, asked about the now delayed (again) subclinical data required of PFE on myo/pericarditis.
Meanwhile the UK has dropped their recommendation to vaccinate/boost people under 50. Acute Kidney Injury has joined myocarditis and immune imprinting as a potential adverse event. The public is slowly questioning all vaccines.
It is like watching the expansion of a land war in Asia. The stakes for being wrong are now so high, there is no return for the FDA and particularly Dr. Peter Marks. We have just the slow but steady march over the cliff.
Power. On Friday evening, PFE released their response – well sort of. They do not acknowledge that their press release is in response to the Project Veritas release. Instead, they begin the release with “[a]llegations have recently been made.” If all you do is read 8Ks you were left scratching your head, assuming that is how you spend your Friday night.
Of course, PFE cannot acknowledge an alternative media outlet like Project Veritas. To do so would be to admit what most of the world knows to be true. Controlling the narrative is no longer possible.
The proliferation of Substacks, podcasts, Twitter feeds and YouTube videos means Dr. Walker’s date-gone-bad can round the globe 100 times before Albert Bourla gets Andrew Ross Sorkin on the phone.
All he and the FDA have is to claim “misinformation/disinformation” and put in a call to Susan Wojcicki, asking her to police her platform better.
Just one more reason PFE is bad for America, a point, ironically, with which Dr. Walker agreed while trying to impress his date at that pizzeria in Brooklyn.
