Pfizergate, the target is Ursula but now we need to clarify. The Point of Comparison – Time

Gianluigi Paragone

04 April 2024

The Pfizergate issue has disappeared from the newspapers’ radar as if someone had already understood that the objective is not the truth regarding the contract with the multinational but rather Ursula von der Leyen herself. To be honest, I think so too: the revelation of the investigation by the prosecutor’s office that deals with the financial affairs of the EU seems more like a piece of that impallination once morest the president of the EU Commission, which began with a dancer “nomination” in within the Group of the European People’s Party and continued with the formal complaint by the European Parliament (also signed by the EPP) once morest the Commission “guilty” of having unblocked the funds in favor of Orban’s Hungary.

Having therefore said that the real objective is political on von der Leyen, an open question remains on the principle of transparency linked to a business worth almost 20 billion. And this is what I have always recalled every time that, in the Senate or on TV, I exposed myself on this front even at the cost of being labeled as a denier or as a “promoter of anti-science” (as if I instead preferred who knows what magical practices. ..): without full knowledge the turnover remains. Even more so because those who went to get vaccinated signed a sheet containing, among other things, the so-called “informed consent”. Finally, I asked this other fundamental question, the same as some other MEPs: why doesn’t parliament have the right to fully know what it has to decide on?

Nothing, secret. In my own small way, I asked parliamentary questions to Minister Speranza: never an answer. Whoever then obtained a copy of the contract had it completely blackened to respect the industrial secrets of the agreement itself. I also denounced the multinational for having marketed an imperfect, i.e. untested, medicine, a complaint which the prosecutor requested to be dismissed. Following the deposition of Pfizer’s sales manager, Janine Small, before the European Parliament in which she stated that the vaccine put on the market “has not been tested to prevent infection” (thus sensationally denying the then Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi who had to say: those who don’t get vaccinated get sick and die or infect and cause death) because “no one would have asked for it” and in any case “there wasn’t time”, with the lawyer Perillo we opposed the request for dismissal. We will have the hearing in September.

Every battle I carried out was characterized by full transparency. I repeat: there is no science without transparency and disclosure of that information that allows comparison between theses. And above all, without transparency on the negotiation, there is a risk that the business (we are talking regarding a turnover of almost 20 billion with Pfizer alone because the EU cut off AstraZeneca following a failed delivery of batches) might hide dangerous temptations. It was the New York Times that spoke of von der Leyen’s “personal diplomacy” with the CEO of Pfizer Albert Bourla and for this reason asked – before filing a complaint – to know the discussions between the European institution and the pharmaceutical giant. Hence the famous story of the emails and text messages mysteriously disappearing.

Now some glimmers of hope have opened, especially thanks to the “others”. In Italy? Little or nothing, as if it were forbidden to tear the rubber wall. The other week, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni declared that the government wants to get to the bottom of things, understand and, if necessary, ensure that the Italian state assumes the responsibilities it must assume. To do this, access to documents and transparency must be guaranteed. To be specific, when does the Commission leave? With which president? With which experts? Will he have limits or will he be able to investigate freely? It’s no longer time for meline.