Dr. PCR: The boards overseeing the COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials are supposed to be independent of pharmaceutical companies. ICAN’s intensive investigation into these boards has revealed conflicts of interest with pharmaceutical companies that are shocking to the conscience. ICAN, through its attorneys, has therefore filed a formal demand to remove these individuals from these boards.
The boards overseeing the COVID-19 vaccine trials are known as Data and Safety Monitoring Boards (DSMBs). As explained
by pro-vaccine bioethicist, Art Caplan, regarding these DSMBs: “They’re
very powerful. They’re key guardians of science and safety and are as
important if not more important than the FDA.”
There are four potential COVID-19 vaccines that are
currently in Phase III clinical trials in the United States. The
clinical trials for three of these experimental vaccines – the ones to
be sold by AstraZeneca, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson – are being
overseen by a DSMB created by Dr. Fauci’s National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases (the NIAID DSMB).
The clinical trial for
Pfizer’s experimental vaccine is being overseen by a different DSMB (the
Pfizer DSMB).
The members of these DSMBs were selected in
secret. They meet in secret. Their identities are supposed to remain a
secret. This veil of secrecy has held with the exception of two
members. The identity of the chairperson of the NIAID DSMB, Dr. Richard
Whitley, was mistakenly revealed
by his university in an announcement that has been scrubbed from its
website. As for the Pfizer DSMB, made up of five individuals, one of its
members, Dr. Kathryn Edwards, was apparently mistakenly revealed in a CBS article.
Selecting these individuals could only occur by
turning a blind eye to their extremely troubling and blatant conflicts
with pharmaceutical companies. For example, ICAN’s investigation has
revealed that one or both of these two doctors have been, among other
things, consultants for Gilead Science, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline,
Merck, Sanofi, Sequirus, La Roche, Allergan, Moderna, and
Novartis; advisors to Merck, Bionet, GSK, and Pfizer; paid speakers for
Connaught, Lederle-Praxis, Wyeth Lederle, Glaxo, and Novartis; paid
millions of dollars from these companies; and, on the tab of these
companies, wined-and-dined to hundreds of meals and taken dozens of
trips to exotic destinations. Meaning, they have had duties to these
companies as consultants and advisors, have been personally financially
supported by them, and have been their mouthpieces to the public.
Nonetheless, the American public is constantly
assured by Dr. Fauci, Secretary Azar, and other public health officials
that the DSMB members are independent of pharmaceutical companies. For
example, Dr. Fauci recently told the public
that: “[P]eople need to understand that an independent body, the Data
and Safety Monitoring Board, is beholden to no one, not to the
president, not to the vaccine companies, not to the FDA. Not to me.”
Only those wearing blinders could give Dr. Whitley
and Dr. Edwards the label “independent.” To head the “independent” DSMB,
Dr. Fauci could have selected from a sea of potential scientists, many
of whom have never consulted for a pharmaceutical company, were never on
a pharmaceutical company speakers’ bureau, and have not had hundreds of
meals and dozens of exotic trips paid for by pharmaceutical
companies. Instead he chose Dr. Whitely as its head. Dr. Fauci makes a
mockery of the term “independent” and calls into serious question his
judgment and objectivity.
ICAN, through its attorneys, headed by Aaron Siri, has therefore sent a demand letter
to the Director of HHS, Director of NIAID, Director of the FDA’s CBER,
the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and POTUS. This letter lays out
in detail: the conflicts of interest that Dr. Whitley and Dr. Edwards
have with pharmaceutical companies; the litany of lies told by Dr. Fauci
and other public health officials regarding the supposed independence
of the DSMBs; and demands that they “remove any member of the NIAID
DSMB, including Dr. Whitley, who has ever been a consultant, has been on
a speakers’ bureau, or has had meals or travel paid for by any
pharmaceutical company.”
You can read the full demand letter here.
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