Matt Hancock takes veiled swipe at Donald Trump’s claims the Pfizer vaccine was held up until AFTER the US election, insisting results from trials are released ‘immediately after science proves it works’
- Donald Trump and allies have railed at timing of news on Pfizer’s Covid vaccine
- Positive trial results emerged less than a week after the knife-edge US election
- Matt Hancock insisted the publication of such data was driven by ‘science’
Matt Hancock today insisted the rules on release of clinical trials are ‘very strong’ and the timing is driven by ‘science’ – despite Donald Trump crying foul about Pfizer’s vaccine bombshell.
The dramatic news that the firm’s jab had proved 90 per cent effective in initial tests broke yesterday, less than a week after the knife-edge US election and under 48 hours after Joe Biden was declared the winner.
Mr Trump and his allies have expressed fury at the timing, with the President saying the US regulators and Democrats ‘didn’t want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later’. The company has flatly denied any political motive to the timing.
In a round of interviews this morning, Mr Hancock delivered a robust defence of the system for issuing clinical results.
Without referring to the US backlash, Mr Hancock stressed that such information had to be published ‘immediately that the science comes good’ and the timing was not dictated by politicians or the companies themselves.
In a round of interviews this morning, Matt Hancock delivered a robust defence of the system for issuing clinical results, saying it was dictated by ‘science’
Mr Trump and his allies have expressed fury at the timing, with the President saying the US regulators and Democrats ‘didn’t want to have me get a Vaccine WIN, prior to the election, so instead it came out five days later’. The company has flatly denied any political motive to the timing
Asked how long the safety results from Pfizer would take, the Health Secretary said ‘most likely weeks’
But he added: ‘It happens at the speed of the science. It is not an administrative decision when this data gets published. It is when the science concludes with clinical certainty that the vaccine is safe.
‘There are very strong rules around clinical trials for when these sorts of publications are made.
‘They are made immediately that the science comes good, or indeed immediately the science proves it is not safe or does not work… we are in the hands of the scientists.’
Mr Hancock insisted neither ministers nor companies dictated the timing.
‘We (ministers) are not in control of the timings, nor in fact are the companies involved… it is about the science,’ he said
Asked if he was expecting to hear about the AstraZeneca and Oxford vaccine trial next week, Mr Hancock told Sky News: “We don’t know exactly when, the timings of this publication are determined by science, not by some administrative decision.’
The vaccine was announced on the first working day after Joe Biden was named President-elect on Saturday.
Pfizer had originally said it expected to know the results of its trial in October, but delayed the announcement until the third week of November before announcing it today.
President Trump had repeatedly suggested that a vaccine would be ready before the election, touting Pfizer as one of the leading candidates.
Albert Bourla told the New York Times yesterday that Mr Trump had pressed him in the lead up to the election on when a vaccine would be ready.
The dramatic news that Pfizer’s vaccine had proved 90 per cent effective in initial trials broke yesterday, less than a week after the knife-edge US election and 24 hours after Joe Biden (pictured) was declared the winner
‘Every time I spoke with the president I told him that he should not worry about us compromising safety or efficacy, but that we would do it as quickly as science allows us,’ he said.
Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president at Pfizer and the head of vaccine research and development, also tried to distance the vaccine results from politics by insisting the timing of the trial results was not connected to the election.
She told the New York Times – in an interview published soon after the announcement was made – that she learned of the results on Sunday just after 1pm – just over 24 hours after Biden was declared the winner.
But in a series of tweets overnight, Mr Trump continued to vent fury, saying: ‘As I have long said, @Pfizer and the others would only announce a Vaccine after the Election, because they didn’t have the courage to do it before.’