Israeli Vax Creator Slams 'Pathetic' Award to Pfizer Head over 'Mediocre' Vaccine

The former head developer of Israel’s coronavirus vaccine has slammed the “pathetic” decision to award the prestigious $1 million Genesis Prize to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, claiming the vaccine was “mediocre.”

Prof. Shmuel Shapira, the former head of the Defense Ministry’s Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), called the decision “pathetic,” according to a translation of his remarks by The Times of Israel.

He added the Pfizer/Biontech vaccine was “mediocre” and only effective in the “short term.”

“There are much more prominent Israeli scientists,” Shapira told Israel’s Channel 12.

“He’s the CEO of a company that did not do this from the goodness of their heart, but merely to rake in billions,” he said.

“It is a mediocre vaccine — I was vaccinated three times and got sick. A lot of people got infected after they were vaccinated. Calling the vaccine moderately effective is pretty generous.”

“There are other vaccines that are far more effective. There are countries with lower vaccination rates that bore [the pandemic] just fine,” he said.

Addressing the BriLife vaccine that he worked on while at the IIBR, Shapira said it never came to fruition because “the bureaucracy did us in.”

“The institute’s vaccine was very successful and even now it is being tested,” he said. “The latest testing shows it is also effective against the Omicron variant. The bureaucracy has failed us repeatedly.”

In a tell-all book, Shapira said that the vaccine was intentionally “sabotaged” to some degree.

Meanwhile, Israel, which recently became the first country in the world to unroll a fourth shot of the Pfizer vaccine, again saw a record number of infections on Wednesday.

The Health Ministry said that more than 70,000 had tested positive the previous day, but according to Health Ministry Director-General Prof. Nachman Ash, the real figure was likely more than 200,000.