By Alex Berenson — May 29, 2025

Confidential documents from Pfizer’s pivotal COVID-19 vaccine trial reveal that the company should have conducted its first interim analysis nearly a month before the 2020 presidential election — an analysis that would have shown strong vaccine efficacy. But Pfizer didn’t follow its own trial protocols. Instead, it delayed announcing results that, had they been released on schedule, could have bolstered President Trump’s re-election bid.

The company’s chairman and CEO, Dr. Albert Bourla, misled the public on the trial’s status. Moreover, the supposedly “independent” data monitoring committee — the group tasked with overseeing the timing of trial data releases — was chaired by Dr. Jonathan Zenilman, a physician with known political leanings, who had made multiple donations to Democratic groups, including ActBlue, during the 2020 election cycle.

At the time, Pfizer justified the delay by pointing to new FDA safety guidelines issued on October 6, 2020, which required longer-term safety data before emergency use authorization (EUA) could be granted. But while those guidelines did affect when the vaccine could be approved, they did not prevent Pfizer from announcing effectiveness data — which would have been hugely significant in the final days before the election.

A Politically Convenient Delay

In late October, Bourla publicly stated that Pfizer didn’t yet have enough data to determine whether the vaccine was effective. That claim was false. Internal records now confirm that by October 8, Pfizer’s trial had reached its first scheduled data checkpoint: 32 confirmed COVID-19 cases among participants. This milestone should have triggered an interim analysis under Pfizer’s own protocol — an analysis designed to determine whether the vaccine was providing protection.

And the results would have been dramatic. All 32 cases had occurred in participants who had received a placebo — zero in the vaccinated group. Statistically, the chance of this outcome occurring by random chance was less than one in four billion.

Despite this compelling data, Pfizer and the monitoring committee did not conduct the analysis. Nor did they announce the findings.

Instead, Pfizer cited “logistical” delays and FDA guidance as reasons for pushing the analysis beyond Election Day. But internal trial documents and testimony suggest the company chose not to act, even though they had the authority — and opportunity — to do so.

Why the Silence?

Pfizer had strong incentives to be the first company to demonstrate a successful COVID-19 vaccine. The financial and reputational stakes were immense. In the summer and fall of 2020, both Pfizer and Moderna were racing toward the finish line, with Pfizer slightly ahead.

Originally, the company’s own projections — including a presentation to Australian regulators on September 18 — anticipated the first interim analysis could occur by late September. When that didn’t happen, Pfizer claimed the COVID infection rate in trial participants had dropped, slowing data collection. But trial data suggests otherwise: cases were steadily accumulating in October, especially among the placebo group.

In reality, the vaccine appeared so effective after the second dose that nearly no vaccinated participants were testing positive — delaying the accumulation of the required number of symptomatic cases across both arms.

Nonetheless, by October 8, Pfizer had met the 32-case threshold. Yet the company chose not to conduct the analysis.

According to Pfizer’s own public documents (released later via court order), the data clearly showed that the vaccine offered near-complete protection a week after the second dose. But rather than publicize this breakthrough, Pfizer remained silent until November 9, six days after the election, when it finally announced that its vaccine was over 90% effective.

Changing the Rules

On October 29 — weeks after the 32-case threshold had been reached — Pfizer quietly updated the trial protocol. It removed the plan to analyze data at 32 cases and instead set a new benchmark: 62 confirmed cases.

Why? Ostensibly, the move was intended to generate a more statistically robust result. But internal trial records show that the 62nd case had occurred by October 21 — meaning Pfizer could have conducted that analysis before the election as well.

Yet again, the company did not act.

Instead, according to senior Pfizer executive Dr. William Gruber, Pfizer and BioNTech simply stopped testing nasal swabs from symptomatic trial participants in late October. Rather than confirm who had COVID, they left the samples in storage. The FDA was informed of this decision.

In other words: Pfizer had the data it needed to perform not one, but two major efficacy analyses in October — either of which could have had political ramifications. But the company chose to do nothing until after the election.

Political Overtones

The decision to delay may not have been entirely apolitical. After the election, Dr. Bourla made no secret of his disdain for Donald Trump. In a 2022 speech, he criticized unnamed individuals as “agents of evil” who spread disinformation, referencing the January 6 Capitol riot and its connection to false narratives. Though he did not name Trump directly, the implication was clear.

Pfizer went on to enjoy a close and lucrative relationship with the Biden administration, which spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars purchasing mRNA vaccines. President Biden even visited a Pfizer manufacturing plant in February 2021, publicly praising Bourla and the company’s role in combating the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the monitoring committee’s chair, Dr. Zenilman, remained silent. Neither he nor other committee members responded to inquiries about why the data was not analyzed sooner. Importantly, the charter governing the committee allowed for flexibility: while it encouraged prompt action, it did not require an immediate review upon hitting a data milestone. That discretion gave Pfizer and Zenilman cover to delay.

Ongoing Investigations

Now, both federal prosecutors in Manhattan and a Congressional committee are investigating Pfizer’s handling of its trial timeline, following a tip from a rival pharmaceutical company, GlaxoSmithKline. A former Pfizer scientist allegedly told GSK executives that Pfizer intentionally delayed the announcement of positive results to avoid influencing the election.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the tip in March 2025 but downplayed its significance, noting that there was “no direct evidence.” However, buried within the report was a revealing quote from Dr. Phil Dormitzer, one of Pfizer’s senior scientists: “My Pfizer colleagues and I did everything we could to get the FDA’s Emergency Use Authorization at the very first possible moment.”

Dormitzer’s statement is technically true. But it obscures a critical distinction: seeking EUA was different from sharing interim efficacy data with the public. The latter could have been done well before the safety data needed for authorization was complete.

Pfizer’s delay was not due to an inability to analyze the data — but a choice not to.

The Takeaway

The public was told Pfizer’s decisions were driven by science and caution. In truth, the evidence strongly suggests that corporate discretion and political considerations played a substantial role. The most favorable vaccine data of the entire trial — proof of near-total protection — was available in early October 2020. But the public didn’t learn of it until after the ballots were cast.

This raises a profound question: was one of the most consequential medical announcements in modern history deliberately delayed to deny a political advantage to a sitting president?

Investigators are now trying to find the answer. But for many, the timeline alone tells a damning story.