WASHINGTON — The release of COVID-19 vaccine results after the 2020 election may have not been a “coincidence” — and could have been part of an effort by senior Pfizer executives to “deliberately slow down” the testing, according to bombshell allegations from a Republican-led congressional panel.
The House Judiciary Committee revealed Thursday that Pfizer’s former Global Head of Vaccines Research and Development, Dr. Philip Dormitzer, may have “conspired to withhold public health information to influence” the presidential contest between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.
The London-based drugmaker GSK in an April 16 letter to Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) disclosed that Dormitzer “approached a representative from the GSK human resources team to speak about a potential relocation abroad” in November 2024.
According to the HR rep, the ex-Pfizer vaccine scientist was “visibly upset” in the meeting and asked to be moved to Canada “due to concerns that he could be investigated by the incoming Trump Administration over his role in developing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.”
When the GSK employee asked what his reasons were for requesting the relocation, Dormitzer apparently responded: “Let’s just say it wasn’t a coincidence, the timing of the vaccine.”
Pfizer used independent experts to review the effectiveness and safety of its vaccines and broadcast the results being shared by its scientists just five days after polls closed for the 2020 election on Nov. 3.
GSK also divulged in the letter that some of its employees heard from the scientist “in late 2020, the three most senior people in 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.”
But the drugmaker, in its letter, also denied that Dormitzer was copping to “delaying disclosure of completed results,” characterizing his statements as being part of “a situation of slowing down results before disclosure became necessary.”
The Judiciary panel still fired off a pair of letters to Dormitzer and Pfizer’s chairman and CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla, on Thursday demanding all records — including emails, texts, meeting notes and other documents — showing data from the clinical trials or communications with federal public health agencies.
“This new information appears to suggest that you and other senior Pfizer executives conspired to withhold public health information to influence the 2020 presidential election,” Jordan wrote to Dormitzer.
“Due to the seriousness of these allegations, the Committee is compelled to request additional information to inform our oversight.”
The responsive files are supposed to cover the period between March 2020 and the present, per the letters.
Jordan’s panel has also demanded Dormitzer — schedule a transcribed interview no later than May 29.
Dormitzer has only contributed to Democratic campaigns, federal election campaign filings show, forking over hundreds of dollars in the 2010s to congressional candidates while working in vaccine development at Novartis.
His comments to GSK employees were first made in the course of a federal probe by Manhattan prosecutors, which, along with the Judiciary letters, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The scientist has denied that he or anyone at Pfizer tried to delay the vaccine, and said his comments to his colleagues at GSK were misinterpreted.
“My Pfizer colleagues and I did everything we could to get the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization at the very first possible moment,” Dormitzer previously told Reuters in a statement amid the investigation by the US Attorneys’ Office for the Southern District of New York.
“Any other interpretation of my comments about the pace of the vaccine’s development would be incorrect.”
“Pfizer is in receipt of the letter asking about allegations made in a Wall Street Journal story, and we will respond directly to the Committee,” a rep for the pharmaceutical company said in a statement.
“The COVID-19 vaccine development process was driven by science and guided by the U.S. FDA back in 2020,” the rep added.
“We have consistently and transparently reiterated the facts and the timeline of the tireless work of scientists, regulators, and thousands of clinical trial volunteers who made the vaccine possible. Theories to the contrary are simply untrue and being manufactured.”
Reps for GSK did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
President Trump has touted how “proud” he was of “Operation Warp Speed” being able to get Americans vaccinated from COVID, with the purchase of 200 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine and 200 million doses of the Moderna shot.
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