He later co-founded a biotech firm that the Swiss drugmaker Novartis purchased for at least $325 million.
The 60-year-old is a former vice president of Pfizer, where he spent 16 years as an allergy and respiratory researcher. What gave the debunked claim credibility was that one of the petition’s co-authors, Michael Yeadon, wasn’t just any scientist. In January, a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a non-profit organization, found that 13% of unvaccinated people in the United States had heard that “COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to cause infertility.” Within weeks, doctors and nurses in Britain began reporting that concerned women were asking them whether it was true, according to the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists. Social media quickly spread exaggerated claims that COVID-19 jabs cause female infertility. Regulators weren’t swayed, either: Weeks later, the European Medicines Agency approved the European Union’s first COVID-19 shot, co-developed by Pfizer Inc. The document appeared on a German website on Dec.1. The petitioners made a bold demand: Halt COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials.Įven bolder was their argument for doing so: They speculated, without providing evidence, that the vaccines could cause infertility in women. Late last year, a semi-retired British scientist co-authored a petition to Europe’s medicines regulator.
