German Vaccine Regulator Chief: “We ARE the European Medicines Agency”

In an earlier article, I pointed to the cozy relationship between BioNTech, the actual owner and legal manufacturer of what is more commonly known as the ‘Pfizer’ COVID-19 vaccine, and the German vaccines and medicines regulator, the Paul Ehrlich Institute or PEI for short. It was the PEI which authorised the first clinical trial of BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, allowing the German company to abridge or even skip preclinical safety testing which would ordinarily have been a precondition for the latter.

This behaviour, and much else, suggests that the PEI acted more as enabler than regulator of BioNTech. But surely the European Medicines Agency (EMA), which would ultimately authorise the BioNTech vaccine for the entire EU, could not be suspected of similar favouritism.

Well, maybe it could. For in the words of PEI president Klaus Cichutek, ‘We are the EMA’.

For the details, see my new post at The Daily Sceptic here.