Pfizer is one of the manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines. So it is significant that last October, a former vice president of the pharmaceutical giant, Dr. Mike Yeadon, publicly said there was no need for the vaccine because the pandemic was already over.
Dr. Mike Yeadon
Mike Yeadon is a scientist, with a Ph. D. in respiratory pharmacology from the University of Surrey, UK, and a B. Sc. with joint honors in biochemistry and toxicology. He has spent over 30 years leading new medicines research in some of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. At Pfizer, he served as Vice President and Chief Scientist for Allergy and Respiratory until he left Pfizer in 2011 and founded his own biotech company, Ziarco, which was sold to the world’s biggest drug company, Novartis, in 2017.
For a list of Dr. Yeadon’s research publications, go here.
This is what Dr. Yeadon wrote on October 16, 2020 that “current evidence” shows that in the UK “there will not be another large, national scale outbreak of COVID-19. Limited, regional outbreaks will be self-limiting and the pandemic is effectively over.” As a consequence:
There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. I’ve never heard such nonsense talked about vaccines. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease. You also don’t set about planning to vaccinate millions of fit and healthy people with a vaccine that hasn’t been extensively tested on human subjects. This much I know after 30 years in the pharmaceutical industry. Yet there are such moves afoot. One thought piece suggests that anyone who refuses vaccination should be subject to indefinite house arrest (Mello et al, 2020). In some countries, there is talk of “no jab, no job”. There have even been job adverts for openings in NHS [National Health Service] Wales for people to “oversee the vaccination of the entire population”. Any such proposals are not only completely unnecessary but if done using any kind of coercion at all, illegal. I would completely understand and would consider accepting early use of a vaccine only if done with fully informed consent and, even then, only if offered to the most vulnerable in our community. Other proposals have, to me, the whiff of evil about them and I will oppose them as vigorously as I have followed the pandemic so far.
I am not an epidemiologist. I’m not a mathematician, either. I do think, though, that I’m a highly experienced life scientist, who has held positions of significant responsibility in large organisations set up to identify and advance experimental medicines. I have had to make big decisions from time to time, using every ounce of experience, imagination, ingenuity and often found myself reading at speed into new areas, tentatively getting to grips with new concepts and knowledge. I’ve always been a collaborator, seeking to work with the most talented individuals I could. I’ve done this repeatedly across a more than 30-year career in new drug discovery. To this day, in notionally early retirement, I advise clients who are building new biotechnology companies, who are dealing with very diverse diseases and novel therapeutic approaches. I respectfully suggest that this background has ideally placed me to assess others’ propositions and assumptions and to bring well-grounded science to bear on complex issues, of which the SARS-CoV-2 is but one, albeit perhaps the most important work I’ve ever done.
See also:
- Madness: Coronavirus-vaccinated are ditching friends who refuse to be vaccinated
- Here’s your COVID-19 Vaccine Passport!
~E