Uncontrolled Spread: Why COVID-19 Crushed Us and How We Can Defeat the Next Pandemic

by Scott Gottlieb

once Russia had developed its own successful COVID vaccine, Sputnik V, its intelligence services mounted an elaborate campaign to undermine confidence in the COVID vaccine marketed by Pfizer.19 It was believed that Russia waged this derogatory operation as part of an effort to gain commercial advantage over Western vaccines as Russia tried to compete with US drug makers for the market primacy of its own vaccine, especially in middle-income nations where Russia was using its vaccine for diplomacy. At one point, a head of state from an Eastern European nation called Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla and implored Bourla to try and encourage the Biden administration to allow US COVID vaccines to be shipped to Eastern Europe because those nations were being flooded with Russian products. Bourla’s subsequent efforts helped instigate a broader action by the Biden administration to procure 500 million doses of Pfizer vaccine, at a not-for-profit price, and distribute it to low- and middle-income countries through COVAX. The actions of Russia, and the situation in Eastern Europe, had provided an added impetus to efforts by the US government to expand global distribution of the American products.