Meningococcal Vaccine: Protection, Risk, Schedule
Kids '50 Times More Likely To Be Killed' By COVID-19 Vaccines? Pants On Fire - PolitiFact
A viral image about COVID-19 vaccines and kids makes this distressing — and spurious — claim:
"Children are 50 times more likely to be killed by the Covid vaccines than by the virus itself."
The words are presented as a quotation attributed to "Dr. Michael Yeadon, former Pfizer VP." Included are the Pfizer logo, a clown holding cash and two hands outstretched toward the money.
The image, shared on Instagram, was flagged as part of Facebook's efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Facebook.)
Child deaths from COVID-19 are rare, but several hundred kids in the United States have died from the virus. There is no clear evidence that COVID-19 vaccines have caused any deaths in the U.S.
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The FDA on Oct. 29 granted emergency use authorization to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, after finding it to be safe and effective for that age group.
Yeadon's background, falsehoodsThe claim stems from a June interview Yeadon gave to Steve Bannon, a podcast host who served as a White House aide and strategist to former President Donald Trump.
Yeadon, who hasn't worked for Pfizer since 2011, said young people are not at risk of serious illness from COVID-19: "It's a crazy thing then to vaccinate them with something that is actually 50 times more likely to kill them than the virus itself."
Bannon interrupted Yeadon, saying, "I want you to back this up."
Yeadon's reply did not cite any evidence to back his claim regarding children.
Yeadon responded by discussing what he described as the large number of adverse events after COVID-19 vaccination, as compared to other vaccines, that have been reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), a federal database run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration that is often used for misinformation.
VAERS helps researchers collect data on vaccine after-effects and to detect patterns that may warrant a closer look. It is designed as an open system, where anyone can submit a report, and the reports are widely accessible. The reports are not verified, and incomplete VAERS data is often cited as a basis for false claims about vaccine safety. The CDC cautions that VAERS results are not enough to determine whether a vaccine causes a particular adverse event.
Yeadon was formerly the chief scientific officer and vice president of allergy and respiratory research, his LinkedIn profile says. But his statements about COVID-19 vaccines have become fodder for a number of false social media claims.
The Spanish fact-checker Maldita.Es rated Yeadon's claim false.
Child death dataThe American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association reported that as of Nov. 4, there were 614 COVID-19 deaths among children. That figure was based on reports from 45 states, New York City, Puerto Rico and Guam, and it amounted to 0.09% of the 673,301 total COVID-19 deaths in those areas.
Meanwhile, there is no clear evidence that COVID-19 vaccines have caused any deaths in the U.S. Researchers are still evaluating whether there is a connection between the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and rare types of blood clots that have led to deaths, but such cases are few.
In vaccine trials, zero deaths were reported among the 1,131 adolescents age 12 to 15 who received the Pfizer vaccine, according to an April 2021 FDA document. Zero deaths also were reported among 2,489 people ages 12 to 17 who received the Moderna vaccine, according to an August 2021 medical journal article.
In July 2021, the CDC reported there were 14 deaths among 8.9 million people age 12 to 17 who received Pfizer vaccinations. None of the deaths were determined to be related to the vaccines, said Dr. Sonja Rasmussen, professor in pediatrics and epidemiology at the University of Florida.
In total, more than 432 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from Dec. 14, 2020, through Nov. 8, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 9,549 reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine.
Our rulingA viral image claimed that "children are 50 times more likely to be killed by" COVID-19 vaccines than by the virus itself.
There is no clear evidence COVID-19 vaccines have caused any deaths. Several hundred children have died from COVID-19.
We rate the claim Pants on Fire.
Turning Pfizer Discards Into Novartis Gold: The Story Of Ziarco - Forbes
It is a situation that happens all too often these days. A biopharmaceutical company undergoes a major change, be it a merger/acquisition, downsizing or simply shifting therapeutic area focus. In times like these, a company will likely eliminate whole R&D programs, disband the team working in these areas or shelve projects. The people working on these programs then move on with their lives, either seeking new jobs within the company or seeking employment elsewhere.
Photographer: Scott Eisen/Bloomberg
This is what happened to Dr. Mike Yeadon, a 17-year Pfizer veteran at Pfizer's R&D unit in Sandwich, England. Mike was told in the fall of 2010 that Pfizer was closing the Allergy & Respiratory Diseases programs and his own role as the CSO of this group was being eliminated. Rather than seek employment elsewhere, Mike had other ideas:
I deduced, rightly as it later turned out, that the UK site was to close. Armed with this deduction, having decided that I was not interested in chasing another big pharma job elsewhere as my family was well settled, and aware that compounds would likely be abandoned, I cooked up the notion of founding a biotech, right here.
Well, on paper that sounds pretty good. But, there were two big challenges that needed to be overcome. First, Pfizer didn't have a big history in licensing programs to others:
In principle, at first it didn't look too hard. I simply showed chutzpah and asked the senior-most people up the research line and they said OK, assuming you raise private capital. In practice, it took a long time, at least six months. The key was in getting Pfizer to recognize that we could not pay cash for the assets, but we were willing to grant equity in exchange for their assignment, while spinning the dream of therapeutic use in areas that, at the time, they had little interest in. Essentially, we would create upside in which they'd share and they needed to do nothing but agree to our proposition, the alternative most likely being that everything would be lost.
Having access to the Pfizer compounds was a terrific accomplishment. But now Mike was faced with the daunting task of raising millions of dollars to run the R&D studies to convert these early-stage compounds into drugs. This wasn't easy. To help in these efforts, he recruited two former Pfizer colleagues who were equally committed and became co-founders–Steve Liu and Lynn Purkins. They were later joined by Arif Shivji.
I'd never raised a dollar privately, so I had the advantage of the certainty of the convert and the energy from having started off being very fit physically–and I needed all of that fitness. The first informal pitch was in February 2011, two days after the UK site closure announcement. It wasn't until May 2012 that we had an anchor investor. I tried in the UK, continental Europe, China and the east coast of the U.S. I ended up finding the anchor investor almost by chance through a personal recommendation to a financier in San Francisco. Uniquely, they didn't ask for–or invest in–a plan for a specific medicine, but the opportunity itself: a bunch of subject matter experts who'd led the invention of these compounds, a compelling story of flexible medical application, the quality of Pfizer molecules and a legitimate reason for their availability. We also learned that they liked the founders and believed that we would go at it with determination.
The anchor investor was BVF Partners with participation from Pfizer Venture Investments. At this point, this virtual company, now known as Ziarco, was off and running. The team focused on its most promising asset, ZPL-389, an orally active histamine H4 antagonist for the treatment of atopic dermatitis (eczema). Why did they pick this one?
I describe this decision-making process as one somewhat like being chromatographed in the medium of biotech reality! It was not the fastest to proof-of-concept [POC], nor the most unique. But it had the most exciting story; we held the most advanced agent in our chosen indication; the molecule had no known flaws of substance; and it was orally available–all properties most desirable by future partners. There was only one other such drug in clinical development and it was owned by a large pharma company. We believed we could be more nimble in decision making and execution. In addition, they were pursuing indications that we had rejected for business reasons, based on investor and pharma feedback. So, all we had to do was be correct in our hypothesis, flawless in execution and really lucky in the way things came out.
The Ziarco team, did in fact, perform very well. In the POC study involving 98 patients, ZPL-389 showed a clinically and statistically significant reduction of eczema after eight weeks as measured by the EASI (Eczema Area and Severity Index), reducing the EASI score by 50% compared to the 27% observed in the placebo arm. No significant side effects were seen. Ziarco had a potential important new drug to treat a significant dermal disease. They got the result that they had hoped for. Yet, there was still another big hurdle–finding a partner who could take ZPL-389 through regulatory approval and eventually to the market.
We engaged many potential partners over a long period of time, right from starting the company in 2012 up to the exclusivity period in 2016. Many would have been good partners, but fortune on all sides favored the tumblers falling into place with Novartis. There were many twists and turns, and it seemed likely that we would be acquired even earlier by a different party as we had good bids from several companies. I was constantly surprised by the many and various reasons–always nothing to do with Ziarco–why bidders fell by the wayside: changing internal priorities, a deal champion changing roles, etc. It proved to have been a good decision never to do contract research with the cheapest external providers, but only with those with good reputations. This was true not only for drug substance and product, but toxicology studies, clinical, advisors, market assessment, legal and tax. Those good providers racked up the bills but, in the sale process, quality names "ticked the box" and made diligence more straightforward–though exhausting!
On December 16, 2016, Novartis announced that it would acquire Ziarco. Besides ZPL-389, Novartis also got ZPL-521, a topical treatment for eczema, as well as an inhibitor of cPLA2, an early mediator in the arachidonic acid cascade, a key component of the inflammatory response. Terms of the deal were not announced. However, speculation is that the deal is worth up to $1 billion in a combination of upfront payments, milestones and royalties.
Mike and his team pulled off an amazing feat. They had a strong belief that the drugs that emanated from their Pfizer research work had value. But, converting that belief into reality was difficult. "The intensity of effort took me away almost completely from my family and other interests for almost five years and you get only one life." Yet their belief was well-founded and their hard work was recognized with great success. Someday millions of eczema patients will be thankful for their efforts.
(The author is the former president of Pfizer global R&D and served as an advisor to Ziarco in 2013 and 2014.)
Former Pfizer Scientist Turned Anti-vaxxer To Lead Rally Against Lockdown In Canterbury - Kent Online
An ex-Pfizer scientist who has become a prominent voice against Covid vaccines is set to speak at an anti-lockdown rally in Kent today.
Dr Michael Yeadon - a former vice-president and chief scientist at the pharmaceutical firm - will be a guest at the World Wide Freedom Rally in Canterbury.
The scientist attracted global media attention when he demanded Covid-19 vaccine trials be stopped after suggesting - without evidence - that the jabs cause infertility in women.
Experts have debunked the theory Dr Yeadon released in a petition he co-wrote, which was sent to Europe's medicine regulator.
However, anti-vaxxers have supported Dr Yeadon's views and shared them across social media.
He has also previously claimed vaccines are "somewhat dangerous" and that face masks "don't work".
According to his LinkedIn profile, the semi-retired scientist, who lives near the city, is now seeking to relocate to America and states his aims are to "continue opposing inappropriate policy responses to covid19 [sic]".
But he is set to give a talk today in Dane John Gardens in Canterbury, which starts at 1pm, as part of a Worldwide Freedom Rally.
It is part of anti-lockdown protests which are sweeping across Europe in opposition to government restrictions to control Covid-19 infections. Read more: All the latest news from Canterbury
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