Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla's 'fraud arrest', falsified trial data, and the media blackout

By the end of Friday, he was in custody awaiting a bail hearing while FBI agents searched "multiple other" properties he owns across the US.

If this all seems shocking and far-fetched - and you're surprised to only be finding out about it now - that's because none of this actually happened.

Protests outside a school in San Diego, California, where Covid vaccination is being mandated for all schoolchildren. The Pfizer vaccine was recently approved in the US for use in five to 11-year-olds

That hasn't stopped the story trending on Twitter and internet antivaxxer messageboards over the past week with the hashtag #PfizerGate, however.

The "exclusive" originated on a Canadian website called Conservative Beaver, which claimed that the police had "ordered a media blackout, which was immediately approved by a judge".

READ MORE: Why transparency is key to defeating the antivaxxers 

As the court's jurisdiction did not cover Canada, where the Beaver is based, it was free to spill the beans, readers were told.

The story has since been debunked by several major news outlets, including Forbes and USA Today, but given that they are part of the (gagged) "mainstream media", that has done little to dampen the enthusiasm of internet conspiracy theorists.

Bourla has appeared on television multiple times over the past week, including on November 5 - when he was supposedly in custody.

He was also posting on social media the same day, and attended an awards ceremony on Thursday.

A spokesman for Pfizer confirmed to media that the CEO had not been arrested.

In Scotland, 1.9m people received Pfizer as a first dose with around 900,000 receiving it as a booster or third dose

Inevitably, none of this would satisfy those convinced of a cover up (maybe his television appearance on Fox News was "pre-recorded"?), but there is also no federal or regional records of a prisoner under his name, and no criminal complaints relating to an Albert Bourla in the US PACER database of federal court records.

It is, quite simply, fake news. But it did not emerge from a vacuum.

The story actually appears to have its roots in a report published in the BMJ - a highly respected journal - on November 2.

The piece - 'Researcher blows the whistle on data integrity issues in Pfizer's vaccine trial' - by investigative journalist Paul Thacker is based on interviews with Brook Jackson, a former regional director at Texas clinical research company Ventavia, which took part in the pivotal phase 3 clinical trial of Pfizer's Covid vaccine.

Jackson, a trained clinical trial auditor with over 15 years experience held her post at Ventavia for just two weeks until she was fired in September 2020 within hours of emailing concerns to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), including worries over a lack of timely follow-up of patients who experienced adverse events; vaccines not being stored at proper temperatures; and targeting of Ventavia staff who reported problems.

READ MORE: Covid vaccines are safe - but we should make demages fair for those harmed

She also alleges that Ventavia falsified data and wrongly unblinded patients (researchers were not supposed to know who was on the vaccine and who was on the placebo).

Two other former employees who spoke to the BMJ anonymously said Ventavia did not have enough staff to swab all trial participants who reported Covid-like symptoms and described the data as a "crazy mess".

Jackson said she was telephoned by an FDA inspector, but heard nothing more. In December 2020, the agency approved Pfizer's request for emergency authorisation of its vaccine following inspections of nine of the trial's 153 sites; no Ventavia sites were among those inspected.

For critics, the key question is whether time and financial pressures led to misconduct.

Confirmed Covid cases peaked in Scotland in September this year, after restrictions ended, but Covid deaths have remained well below levels seen during the first and second waves

Ventavia insists that the accusations were previously raised and investigated a year ago, when they were "determined to be unsubstantiated".

A spokeswoman added: "Ventavia takes research compliance, data integrity, and participant safety very seriously, and we stand behind our work supporting the development of life-saving vaccines."

It is probably not a coincidence that the BMJ's investigation morphed into claims of criminal charges against Bourla given it came so soon after US regulators approved the Pfizer vaccine for use in children aged five to 11 - a decision which comes as some parents in California have also been keeping pupils out of school or picketing at the gates in protest at the state's controversial policy of mandatory vaccination for schoolchildren.

READ MORE: AstraZeneca and Covid vaccine both linked to increased risk of rare neurological disorder 

The rights and wrongs of forcing people to vaccinate their children, and scientific probity in clinical trials, should rightly be scrutinised.

But it should not detract from what the evidence tells us now : namely, that vaccines (including Pfizer's) have prevented thousands of deaths, they remain our best route out of the pandemic, and serious adverse events are associated at much higher rates with Covid infection than vaccination.

This time last year, Scotland was reporting around 7,700 cases a week and 247 deaths despite social distancing, bans on household visiting, and widespread pub and restaurant closures.

Now, with most restrictions lifted, we are recording around 20,000 cases a week but just over 100 deaths.

For every infection now detected around 4% will translate into a hospital admission, compared to 12% in January. Boosters should shrink this further.

Graphic illustrating rates of rare neurological complications associated with Covid, AZ and Pfizer vaccines

A major UK study of 32 million adults did find an association between the Pfizer vaccine and an above average rate of haemorrhagic stroke (a bleed on the brain) in the 28 days following vaccination, at an incidence of 60 excess cases for every 10 million first doses administered.

But researchers also found that the rate of these cerebral haemorrhages doubled in the first seven days after someone tested positive for Covid.

Yes, scientific fraud happens. But antivaxxers might do well to apply equal scepticism to social media.