Newly disclosed emails reveal that officials at The Lancet, a major journal, discussed a professor’s allegedly anti-vaccine Twitter activity when deciding whether to publish his paper challenging the claim that Pfizer’s vaccine was 95% effective. The emails show that The Lancet ultimately rejected the rebuttal paper. The professor, Norman Fenton, obtained the emails from Elsevier, which publishes The Lancet. The emails contained discussions about “vaccine misinformation” and Fenton’s background, and one official described Fenton as having “retweeted anti-vaxx posts on Twitter.” The Lancet did not respond to requests for comment on this matter. The journal had previously published a paper by Israeli officials and Pfizer that claimed the company’s vaccine was 95% effective against COVID-19 infection in Israel. Fenton and another professor wrote a rebuttal claiming that the effectiveness estimates were exaggerated. The Lancet rejected their updated rebuttal, which questioned the safety and effectiveness of Pfizer’s vaccine. Many of the emails shared by Fenton were heavily redacted, prompting him to ask Elsevier to remove them.
Emails reveal journal discussion prior to rejecting Pfizer vaccine study challenge.
