Pfizer Boss Accuses EU of Hampering COVID Vaccine Rollout
The EU vaccine rollout has been a mess and everyones pointing fingers at everyone else trying to avoid blame for the bodies piling up while bureaucrats debated contracts. Now Pfizers CEO is jumping into the blame game, accusing European regulators of creating obstacles that slowed down delivery of vaccines people desperately needed. Its getting spicy over there and nobody looks good in this fight.
Albert Bourla didnt hold back in recent comments, suggesting the EU approval process was slower and more complicated than in other regions that got their acts together faster. The European Medicines Agency took weeks longer than the UKs regulator to approve the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Those weeks matter when people are dying and hospitals are overwhelmed and the whole continent is watching the UK vaccinate people while they wait for bureaucratic boxes to get checked.
The vaccines prevent severe illness and death – thats the main point everyone forgets in the debates about transmission and variants. Getting shots into arms saves lives. But we needed them deployed fast to have maximum impact and minimize deaths during the worst waves. The EU didnt move fast enough. Whether thats because of legitimate caution or excessive bureaucracy depends on who you ask.
The EU Side Of This Fight
European officials fired back at Bourla saying they had to follow rigorous safety protocols and that Pfizer itself missed delivery targets it had promised. Which is true! Pfizer did have production issues and did fall short on promised deliveries. Both things can be true simultaneously – the EU was slow to approve AND Pfizer had manufacturing problems that delayed shipments. But the finger-pointing doesnt actually get more needles into arms which should be the only thing anyone cares about right now.
The real structural issue is the EU tried to negotiate as a bloc of 27 countries which is powerful for leverage in normal times but slow as molasses for decision-making in emergencies. Individual countries like the UK and Israel moved faster by making their own deals, taking more risk on early approvals before all the data was perfect. They bet that speed mattered more than caution and so far the bet seems to have paid off with lower death rates during critical periods.
What Happens From Here
Production is ramping up and eventually supply will meet demand across Europe. The crisis wont last forever and someday this will be a historical footnote about pandemic response failures. But the early stumbles cost lives – real human beings who died waiting for vaccines that were approved elsewhere, distributed elsewhere, injected into arms elsewhere while Europe deliberated. It also eroded public confidence in institutions that were supposed to protect people when it mattered most.
The broader lesson is that bureaucracies designed for normal times struggle when speed matters more than process. Systems optimized to prevent errors are poorly suited for emergencies where inaction IS the error. The EU process that works fine for approving new food additives or non-urgent medications becomes a death sentence when applied to vaccines during a pandemic that kills thousands daily.
Maybe thats worth remembering for the next pandemic, the next crisis, the next time every day of delay means more deaths. Or maybe well forget like we always do and make the same mistakes again expecting different results. The EU will conduct reviews and write reports about what went wrong. Recommendations will be issued. Then the next emergency will hit and someone somewhere will insist on following the normal process because thats how weve always done things.
History suggests well learn nothing. Institutions have antibodies against learning that conflict with their existing procedures. But maybe Im being too cynical. Maybe COVID was traumatic enough to actually change behavior. I doubt it but stranger things have happened. In the meantime the finger-pointing continues and people who should be working together are too busy assigning blame to fix anything meaningful.
