LONDON (LifeSiteNews) — One of the world’s oldest and most prestigious medical journals has issued an urgent call for the full release of all data regarding the COVID-19 injections and other treatments, arguing that keeping crucial information hidden from the public is “morally indefensible.”
In a comprehensive editorial published January 19 by senior editor Peter Doshi, editor in chief Kamran Abbasi, and former editor in chief Fiona Godlee, The British Medical Journal (BMJ) asserted that clinical trial data used to approve COVID-19 drugs “should be fully and immediately available for public scrutiny.”
NEW – Peter Doshi, a senior editor of the BMJ – one of the world’s oldest general medical journals – calls for the full and immediate release of all data related to COVID vaccines and treatments.https://t.co/Bg8JUtfAe8
— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 20, 2022
Drug companies conduct their own trials, keep data hidden
According to the BMJ, manufacturers of today’s COVID-19 drugs — including double-shot mRNA jab producer Pfizer — have been allowed to sponsor and conduct their own clinical trials while keeping the data hidden from independent analysts. Findings from these corporate-sponsored trials have subsequently been forwarded to government regulatory agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which have granted approval of the shots based upon the companies’ closely guarded data.
“Pfizer’s pivotal covid vaccine trial was funded by the company and designed, run, analysed, and authored by Pfizer employees,” the medical journal explained, adding that “[t]he company and the contract research organisations that carried out the trial hold all the data.”
Meanwhile, Pfizer has said it won’t entertain requests for access to its trial data until May 2025, a full two years after the primary study completion date of May 15, 2023.
Pfizer’s…vaccine trial was funded by the company… and authored by Pfizer employees. The company… holds all the data… It will not begin entertaining requests for trial data until May 2025.
– BMJ editorsWhy not be transparent with trial data?https://t.co/ViqUG5Jndi
— Jay Bhattacharya (@DrJBhattacharya) January 21, 2022
It’s ‘morally indefensible’ to hide clinical trial data
“[D]espite the global rollout of covid-19 vaccines and treatments, the anonymised participant level data underlying the trials for these new products remain inaccessible to doctors, researchers, and the public — and are likely to remain that way for years to come,” the editors of the prestigious journal stated. “This is morally indefensible for all trials, but especially for those involving major public health intervention.”
According to the BMJ, Pfizer isn’t the only company which appears to be shielding its COVID jab data from independent inquiry.
“The lack of access to data is consistent across vaccine manufacturers,” the journal stated, noting that fellow mRNA jab manufacturer Moderna says its data may be available “upon request” after the company’s trial is complete, no sooner than October 27, 2022.
Meanwhile, the authors observed that although “AstraZeneca may be ready to entertain requests for data from several of its large phase III trials,” the process could be lengthy, with the company stating that it can take up to a year for the data to be released upon submission of a request.
“We are left with publications but no access to the underlying data on reasonable request,” the editors said, pointing out that “[t]his is worrying for trial participants, researchers, clinicians, journal editors, policy makers, and the public.”
Do you want to start a thousand conspiracy theories? Because letting Pfizer and Moderna hide their vaccine testing data will start a thousand conspiracy theories. https://t.co/rqnQUJ6O3q
— Ezra Levant 🍁 (@ezralevant) January 21, 2022
‘Unreasonable delay’
Late last year the FDA generated headlines when it responded to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by asking for 55 to 75 years to fully release the data they reviewed before authorizing Pfizer’s COVID-19 injections.
Facing legal pressure, the FDA then released its first batch of documents in November 2021. The scant 91 pages nonetheless contained data suggesting that tens of thousands of serious adverse events and more than 1,200 deaths had been reported in the first three months after Pfizer’s COVID-19 jab was cleared under an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA).
On January 7, 2022, a U.S. district judge rejected the FDA’s request to continue delaying the release of their clinical trial data, ordering the regulatory body to publish the roughly 329,000 pages of documents in its possession at a rate of 55,000 pages per month rather than the 500 pages per month initially requested.
However, the BMJ’s editors noted that the “FDA is producing data only for Pfizer’s vaccine,” while “other manufacturers’ data cannot be requested until the vaccines are approved, which the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines are not.”
‘Big pharma is the least trusted industry’
The BMJ went on to point out that in the wake of global immunization efforts, “trust” and “transparency” are vital, noting that “Big pharma is the least trusted industry.”
“At least three of the many companies making covid-19 vaccines have past criminal and civil settlements costing them billions of dollars,” the editors said, adding that one of the companies (Pfizer), has previously “pleaded guilty to fraud.”
“Other companies have no pre-covid track record,” the journal’s editors continued. “Now the covid pandemic has minted many new pharma billionaires, and vaccine manufacturers have reported tens of billions in revenue.”
‘We need complete data transparency for all studies, we need it in the public interest, and we need it now’
While the BMJ affirmed that it “supports vaccination policies based on sound evidence,” the editors argued that “[a]s the global vaccine rollout continues, it cannot be justifiable or in the best interests of patients and the public that we are left to just trust ‘in the system,’ with the distant hope that the underlying data may become available for independent scrutiny at some point in the future.”
“There is no place for wholesale exemptions from good practice during a pandemic,” the authors continued, adding that “[t]he public has paid for covid-19 vaccines through vast public funding of research” while carrying both the “benefits and harms that accompany vaccination.”
“The public, therefore, has a right and entitlement to those data, as well as to the interrogation of those data by experts,” the BMJ contended.
In conclusion, the medical journal asserted that as major pharmaceutical corporations rake in “vast profits without adequate independent scrutiny of their scientific claims,” it’s not the job of federal regulatory bodies like the FDA “to dance to the tune of rich global corporations and enrich them further; it is to protect the health of their populations.”
“We need complete data transparency for all studies, we need it in the public interest, and we need it now,” the BMJ said.