Pfizer Did Not Declare That Its Vaccines Are Not Safe for Pregnant Women
The Claim
A Pfizer document reveals that COVID-19 vaccines are not safe for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding.
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Emerging story
Social media users are widely sharing screenshots of an alleged Pfizer document. The image being shared has certain sentences highlighted: “COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 is not recommended during pregnancy,” and: “It is unknown whether the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2 is excreted in human milk.”
A widely shared caption reads: “This should be front page news. #Pfizer: The vaccine ‘should not be used during breastfeeding’ and is ‘not recommended during pregnancy’. Yet, hospitals coerced pregnant women to get the shot or be fired from their jobs.”
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar investigated the circulating claim and found it to be misleading.
Misbar’s team searched for the sentences in the shared image and discovered that the screenshot is taken from an outdated report by Britain’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) in 2020. Moreover, the report does conclude that the vaccines are not safe, but rather highlights that they are not recommended during pregnancy since there is no research about the safety of the vaccines, which was true at the time.
The Safety of Vaccines for Pregnant Women
It was only on February 18, 2021, that Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech Se announced that “the first participants have been dosed in a global Phase 2/3 study to further evaluate the safety, tolerability, and immunogenicity of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (BNT162b2) in preventing COVID-19 in healthy pregnant women 18 years of age and older.”
The 2020 report entitled “regulation 174 information for UK healthcare professionals” highlights the scarcity of research regarding the safety of COVID-19 vaccines during pregnancy. According to the 2020 report, “There are no or limited amount of data from the use of COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2.”
However, the updated version of the report, which was updated on April 27, 2022, does not mention that the vaccines are not recommended for women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. Moreover, the description of the available research changed from “no or limited amount of data” to “There is limited experience with the use of the COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine BNT162b2in pregnant women.” Screenshots from the two reports can be seen below.
Photo Description: A screenshot from the 2020 “Regulation 174 Information for UK Healthcare Professionals.”
Photo Description: A screenshot from the 2022 “Regulation 174 Information for UK Healthcare Professionals.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “any of the currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines can be administered to pregnant or lactating people,” the guidance of the World Health Organization does not suggest that COVID-19 vaccines pose a threat to pregnant women or those who are breastfeeding.
Based on these findings, Misbar concludes that the circulating claim is misleading. The report was not released by Pfizer, and the outdated research findings are no longer valid.
