by Brenda Baletti, Ph.D., Childrens Health Defense:
The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority, an independent, self-regulatory body established by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, ruled that the company breached five rules in its Code of Practice for advertising.
A U.K. regulatory agency found that top Pfizer employees “brought discredit” on the pharmaceutical industry when they made misleading claims promoting an “unlicensed medicine” in tweets about the COVID-19 vaccine, The Telegraph reported Sunday.
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The Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), an independent, self-regulatory body established by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, ruled that the company breached five rules in its Code of Practice for advertising.
U.K. pharmaceutical industry watchdog UsForThem filed the complaint with the PMCPA in February 2023. The complaint pertained to 2020 tweets by top Pfizer executives, including U.K. Medical Director Berkeley Phillips. The tweets were still visible on social media when the complaint was filed.
The organization alleged that Pfizer “misleadingly and illegally promoted its COVID-19 vaccine” by reporting very high relative efficacy rates without providing information about absolute efficacy rates or required information about safety.
UsForThem said it was important to file this complaint two years later because “such misbehavior was even more widespread” than they had previously thought, extending “right to the top” of Pfizer’s U.K. operation and “was apparently continuing to this very day.”
Commenting on the significance of the findings, Daniel O’Conner of Trial Site News, which also covered the story, told The Defender, “Pfizer’s behavior throughout the pandemic has been truly outrageous. And of course the aim — big money.”
O’Connor said Pfizer’s “corporate behavior during the pandemic,” as revealed by this and other PMCPA rulings, is “just as insidious” as the problems with the regulatory pathways for the drugs and major flaws in the clinical trials themselves that Trial Site News has been tracking.
Pfizer has a clear track record of acting as an “unacceptable profiteering enterprise during the worst pandemic in a century,” he added. “The question we have is who empowered them in government.”
Serious censure for bringing ‘discredit upon’ Big Pharma
The complaint focused on a tweet Pfizer’s Phillips shared on Twitter, now X, originally made by a U.S.-based Pfizer employee. The tweet stated:
“Our vaccine candidate is 95% effective in preventing COVID-19, and 94% effective in people over 65 years old. We will file all of our data with health authorities within days. Thank you to every volunteer in our trial, and to all who are tirelessly fighting this pandemic.”
The PMCPA investigatory panel found that four Pfizer U.K. employees had re-tweeted the post and others had “liked” it. They said it was likely that members of the public and health professionals would have seen the tweet.
The panel agreed with the UsForThem’s allegations that the message had limited efficacy information and no safety information, in violation of rules about misleading the public and providing accurate safety data.
The panel also pointed out that the existing codes of conduct prohibit the promotion of medicines before their market authorization. Yet, in direct violation of the codes, Pfizer employees’ tweets resulted in “an unlicensed medicine being proactively disseminated on Twitter to health professionals and members of the public in the UK,” the panel found.
The tweets also violated Pfizer’s own policy that prohibits Pfizer employees from interacting with social media related to the company’s medicines and vaccines.
The PMCPA panel concluded that “Pfizer brought discredit upon and reduced confidence in the pharmaceutical industry,” which it noted is a serious censure that it reserves for serious violations such as this one where a company promoted a drug before it had even been authorized.
Cases found to have brought discredit on the industry are advertised in the medical, pharmaceutical and nursing press.
A Pfizer U.K. spokesman said that the company “fully recognises and accepts the issues highlighted by this PMCPA ruling,” and that it is “deeply sorry,” according to The Telegraph.
Pfizer also said it would review its employees’ use of social media to ensure they comply with current codes and to prevent such problems in the future.
The paper also reported that Phillips, whose re-tweet was primarily at issue, said the post was “accidental and unintentional.” He added, “That said, we immediately accepted the case ruling and do everything we can to ensure that our employees adhere to our strict social media policy and the industry Code of Practice when using their personal social media.”
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