House GOP requests records from Pfizer in probe of COVID vaccine delay allegation
The GOP-led House Judiciary Committee is requesting records from Pfizer’s CEO and an interview with a former company executive to investigate an allegation that clinical testing related to the development of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine was purposefully delayed until after the 2020 presidential election.
Pfizer’s CEO has previously said that the vaccine timing had nothing to do with politics.
The committee probe comes after a Wall Street Journal that British drugmaker GSK approached federal prosecutors with a disputed allegation that a former Pfizer executive who came to work for them, Dr. Philip Dormitzer, told his new colleagues at GSK that Pfizer delayed announcing that its COVID vaccine was a success until after the election. Dormitzer disputed that account, telling the newspaper, “My Pfizer colleagues and I did everything we could to get the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization at the very first possible moment,” and that “any other interpretation of my comments about the pace of the vaccine’s development would be incorrect.”
Pfizer’s news about the effectiveness of its COVID-19 vaccine came nearly a week after Election Day, but Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla has said the timing had nothing to do with politics. In an interview with CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Sanjay Gupta in 2020, Bourla threw cold water on the idea that there was any political motivation behind releasing the news after voters in the United States chose their candidate for president. GSK is a rival drugmaker.
House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan sent a letter Thursday to Dormitzer seeking documents and information as well as his testimony in a transcribed interview. The letter cites excerpts from information the committee says it received from GSK about Dormitzer’s interactions with a GSK human resources representative in November 2024. The committee highlighted information GSK provided, but CNN has not reviewed the full GSK letter.
Jordan is also seeking information from Pfizer’s chief executive.
“As the human resources representative recalls, in their meeting, Dr. Dormitzer was visibly upset; he requested that he be relocated 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,” GSK said, according to Jordan’s letter.
“According to the human resources representative, when asked what prompted his request, Dr. Dormitzer made a comment to the effect of: ‘Let’s just say it wasn’t a coincidence, the timing of the vaccine’,” the letter adds.
Jordan also quoted GSK claiming that Dormitzer told his former colleagues at the company “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.”
A Pfizer spokesperson told CNN, “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.”
“The COVID-19 vaccine development process was driven by science and guided by the U.S. FDA back in 2020. 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,” the spokesperson said.