A Kentucky congressman Saturday said that Pfizer’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved COVID-19 vaccine is not available in the United States after The Ohio Star spent a week reporting on that subject.
“Your first sentence, ‘Comirnaty is available in the US,’ is false. Show us one location it’s available to prove otherwise. The FDA requires Pfizer to disclose to other countries BioNTech is ‘subject to an EUA and is not approved or licensed by the FDA,'” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY-04) said on Twitter.
Your first sentence, “Comirnaty is available in the US,” is false. Show us one location it’s available to prove otherwise.
The FDA requires Pfizer to disclose to other countries BioNTech is “subject to an EUA and is not approved or licensed by the FDA.”https://t.co/kvCe6F01Wt https://t.co/rOORWwnvjn pic.twitter.com/kFQii84rBp
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 18, 2021
He was replying to a Louisville Courier-Journal columnist called Joe Gerth, who falsely claimed that Pfizer’s Corminaty is just a “rebranded” version of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine which was approved for emergency use via an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).
Gerth is wrong to imply that the vaccines are the same.
As The Star learned earlier this week, Pfizer is still shipping the EUA version of the vaccine. The FDA says the two vaccines are “legally distinct,” though Pfizer claims they are “interchangeable.”
“The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine (EUA labeled product) is currently being shipped,” the company told The Star.
After inquiring about whether Comirnaty is currently in use anywhere in the United States, the company only said that it will continue to ship the EUA version of the vaccine until the doses expire.
The Star has not been able to find any evidence to suggest that Comirnaty is in use.
Several entities, including the Ohio Department of Health (ODH) and the U.S. Army, refused to confirm whether they were distributing Comirnaty. ODH declined, and the Army never returned a comment request.
Ohio’s HB 244 outlaws mandating vaccines that are not FDA approved.
Still, the state’s public universities have mandated vaccines for their students, despite the fact that the vaccine in use in the state appears to be the non-FDA approved version.
Likewise, the Army imposed a vaccine mandate for active duty troops the day after Comirnaty was approved by the FDA. That mandate was predicated on the assertion that an FDA approved vaccine was available. The deadline for troops to get vaccinated has come and passed, but there is still no evidence that any of the troops received Comirnaty.
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Pete D’Abrosca is a reporter at The Star News Network. Follow Pete on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Background Photo “Pfizer Vaccine” by Agência Brasília. CC BY 2.0.
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