這位Michael Yeadon在輝瑞服務16年，是個不折不扣的科學人。從基層過敏呼吸藥品的研究員做起，一路做到副總裁。同事眼中是個博學多聞，非常聰慧的人，講求看到證據再講話。

平日為人非常低調。

去年年初，新冠疫情剛爆發時，他仍一本專業的初衷與口吻說，「沒有疫苗，這場疫情恐怕無法結束。」

之後，他帶幾個部屬離開輝瑞到外面自立門戶，發展一款專治過敏的藥，專利被諾華買走。

年中開始，到2020年底時，他突然無端大逆轉，推特發數千則貼文，一向低調的他，突然站出來大聲疾呼，#要輝瑞停止所有疫苗的臨床實驗。而且，在沒有證據的狀況下提出 #疫苗可能導致婦女不孕的論調。

他不是一般人，不是像我們這樣泛泛之輩不具醫藥背景的人信口開河。他出身藥廠，輝瑞藥廠，而且是高級主管，他的話特別有影響力。

記者走訪餐廳，訪問到一個女服務生，就說她不要打疫苗，因為她準備懷孕。問她聽誰說的，她講不上來，但有這樣的印象，而且她堅持不打。之後被雇主辭退。

英國的衛福部批評Michael Yeadon的話，錯誤，危險，不負責任。

是Michael Yeadon突然吃錯藥心智狂亂嗎？問題他不是唯一一人站出來反對疫苗，反對疫情過程政府措施的偏頗。有其他諾貝爾獎得主也站出來。現在，甚至有世界醫生聯盟以團體之姿站出來。

只是這些人的言論與影片一概被下架。

Michael Yeadon的大逆轉，以及大逆不道的貼文，也引來他過去同事下戰帖般的回應。他們都感到很不滿，這不是我認識的Michael Yeadon，他們想。

記者在寫這篇文章時曾訪問他的同事，大家紛紛走避。訪問當初買他藥品專利的諾華，諾華也以該藥品後來測試沒有效，不準備推出上市。訪問他曾擔任顧問的兩家小藥廠，這兩家也紛紛與他化清界線。

都21世紀了，中古世紀那種獵殺什麼的氛圍依舊存在我們自以為開化的社會，真得讓人失笑。

但，路透社這篇，我要給它鼓鼓掌，算是主流媒體願意給予的，某個程度，算是平衡的報導。

這篇報導引出Michael Yeadon這個人與他的事蹟，讓大眾知道，但仍帶回主流媒體一貫的立場，作者對他的老闆也能有所交代，是個聰明，心也有熱度的人。

至於為什麼Michael Yeadon背叛了他工作數十年的職場以及他所涵養出來的專業？作者說那真是個謎啊~

是啊，是怎樣的動力讓一個本來低調的人肯拋頭露臉站出來，甘冒大不晦，沒事惹惱主管機關，惹眾人生氣？的確令人費解，目前他轉到其他非主流媒體，時不時會接受訪問。

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-vaccines-skeptic/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook

全部譯文

前輝瑞主管成為反疫苗英雄

退休科學家 Michael Yeadon

麥可宜頓 Michael Yeadon原本是研究員與副總裁。後來成立一家成功的生化科技公司。他的職涯急轉彎。

去年年底，半退休的英國科學家跟他人聯手向歐洲醫藥法規機構提出請願書。大膽提出：停止新冠疫苗臨床試驗。

更大膽的是，即使沒有證據他們推測，這個疫苗可能導致女性不孕。

這份文件在2020年12月1日出現在德國網站。科學界譴責這樣的理論。法規機構也沒有動搖：幾週後，歐洲藥品管理局批准第一批輝瑞的疫苗。但損害已經造成。

這樣的想法迅速在社群網站擴散，聲稱新冠疫苗會導致女性不孕。幾個禮拜內，英國的醫生護士回報婦女們會詢問是否屬實。一月，非營利組織Kaiser基金會的調查發現，美國未接種疫苗的人群中，有13％聽過新冠疫苗會導致不育。

原因就是聯合請願的其中一位邁克耶頓不是普通的科學家。他現年60歲，是輝瑞前副總裁，從過敏呼吸研究員做起，服務16年。後來與人共同成立一家生物科技公司，瑞士藥廠諾華後來以至少3.25億美元收購。

輝瑞疫苗是歐盟首批授權使用的新冠疫苗。

過去幾個月，宜頓成了不可能的反疫苗英雄，追隨他的人質疑很多疫苗的安全性，包括新冠疫苗。

反疫苗運動放大宜頓對新冠疫苗與臨床測試的質疑，對政府強制封城與流行病的質疑。

宜頓本人並不反對所有疫苗。

但很多健康專家與政府官員擔心，宜頓所提出的質疑會助長不打疫苗的風氣延長疫情的時間。因新冠病毒而死的人全球超過260萬人。

當被問到對宜頓論點的看法，英國衛生與社會保健發言人說：「這些說法虛假，危險，完全不負責任。保護人群免受冠狀病毒感染最佳的方法就是接種新冠疫苗，這將能挽救數千人的生命。」

最近有關接種阿斯特捷利康疫苗疫苗少數人出現血栓與異常出血狀況，讓人質疑該疫苗的安全性，導致幾個歐洲國家暫停使用。更加雪上加霜。儘管沒有證據顯示阿斯特捷利康疫苗與病患者之間的因果關係。

宜頓沒有回應報導。在整理這篇文章過程，路透社去翻他過去兩年數千則推文，以及其他的文章與著作。也訪問五個認識他的人，四名甚至是他以前輝瑞的同事。

輝瑞發言人拒絕談論宜頓過去在工作上的表現，只強調輝瑞德國BioNtech的疫苗不會導致不孕。

宜頓的請願書出現在另一個疫苗質疑者的網站，羅伯甘迺迪，因為疫苗言論導致他的推特最近被禁。

疫苗懷疑論者米歇爾馬爾金，上個月寫了一篇專欄文章，標題名為“懷孕婦女-小心新冠疫苗”

另一篇部落格文章，標題也很聳動，輝瑞研究部門頭頭說，新冠疫苗讓女性絕育，在臉書分享數千次。

10月，宜頓為英國每日郵報寫專欄，同步發表在網站，世界上流量最大的新聞網站之一。文章寫道新冠病毒造成的死亡，當時英國總計45,000，將很快“消失”，英國人會很快恢復正常生活。從那以後又有80,000人因此病毒死亡。

宜頓並不是唯一一位有地位的科學家跳出來挑戰新冠病毒，提出有爭議性的觀點。

諾貝爾化學獎得主邁克萊維特，告訴史丹佛日報，他預計美國這場流行病2020年就能結束，死亡人數不超過175,000，是目前死亡數字的三分之一。當有一天，我們回頭看，我們會說這不是什麼可怕的疾病。”

另一位諾貝爾得主盧克·蒙塔格尼爾則說，他相信新冠病毒在中國實驗室製造的。很多專家懷疑，但現在仍無法證明是真是假。

萊維特告訴路透社，他對美國這場疫情預測錯誤，但他仍相信新冠病毒最終不是可怕的疾病，而封城會造成很大的連帶損失，也許沒有必要。

另外一位蒙塔格尼爾沒有回應。

宜頓的可信度來自他曾在輝瑞服務過，數位資料庫的執行長這麼說，這家公司專打擊網路不實謠言。宜頓的背景讓他的訊息帶有危險有害的可信度。

去年秋天，英國下議院對政府處理疫情的辯論中，國會議員理查德拉克斯聲稱宜頓為傑出科學家，引用他的觀點“這個病毒可控制，也接近尾聲。當求證時，他本人沒有回應。

最近，倫敦議員戴維克頓發推文說，新冠疫苗可能導致婦女不孕，有真正的危險。求證時他本人沒有回應。

為什麼宜頓從主流科學家轉身成疫苗懷疑論者仍是一團迷。

他的數千則推文可追溯到疫情開始，他觀點的大迴轉。早先，他是支持疫苗策略的。但看不出明顯線索解釋他的急轉彎。

輝瑞的前同事說，這位他們曾認識的麥可宜頓變得陌生。他們形容他是一個博學多才與聰慧的人，總是要看到證據而且為人低調不愛曝光。

前同事之一Sterghios A. Moschos，他有分子生物學與藥學學位。去年12月，宜頓推文寫“挖口罩”。他立即回應：「你在講什麼？你是準備害人去死嗎？你要知道，如果你說錯，別人會因為你的話導致死亡。」

2020年12月起，宜頓跟輝瑞前同事在推特的對話全部被移除。

宜頓2018年10月加入推特，常推文，很多產。

A REUTERS SPECIAL REPORT

The ex-Pfizer scientist who became an anti-vax hero

Retired scientist Michael Yeadon. REUTERS Illustration/via YouTube

Michael Yeadon was a scientific researcher and vice president at drugs giant Pfizer Inc. He co-founded a successful biotech. Then his career took an unexpected turn.

Late last year, a semi-retired British scientist co-authored a petition to Europe’s medicines regulator. The petitioners made a bold demand: Halt COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials.

Even bolder was their argument for doing so: They speculated, without providing evidence, that the vaccines could cause infertility in women.

The document appeared on a German website on Dec.1. Scientists denounced the theory. Regulators weren’t swayed, either: Weeks later, the European Medicines Agency approved the European Union’s first COVID-19 shot, co-developed by Pfizer Inc. But damage was already done.

Social media quickly spread exaggerated claims that COVID-19 jabs cause female infertility. Within weeks, doctors and nurses in Britain began reporting that concerned women were asking them whether it was true, according to the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists. In January, a survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a non-profit organization, found that 13% of unvaccinated people in the United States had heard that “COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to cause infertility.”

What gave the debunked claim credibility was that one of the petition’s co-authors, Michael Yeadon, wasn’t just any scientist. The 60-year-old is a former vice president of Pfizer, where he spent 16 years as an allergy and respiratory researcher. He later co-founded a biotech firm that the Swiss drugmaker Novartis purchased for at least $325 million.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was the first COVID-19 shot to be authorized for use in the European Union. 

“These claims are false, dangerous and deeply irresponsible.”

A spokesman for Britain’s Department of Health & Social Care

In recent months, Yeadon (pronounced Yee-don) has emerged as an unlikely hero of the so-called anti-vaxxers, whose adherents question the safety of many vaccines, including for the coronavirus. 

The anti-vaxxer movement has amplified Yeadon’s skeptical views about COVID-19 vaccines and tests, government-mandated lockdowns and the arc of the pandemic. Yeadon has said he personally doesn’t oppose the use of all vaccines. 

But many health experts and government officials worry that opinions like his fuel vaccine hesitancy – a reluctance or refusal to be vaccinated – that could prolong the pandemic. COVID-19 has already killed more than 2.6 million people worldwide.

“These claims are false, dangerous and deeply irresponsible,” said a spokesman for Britain’s Department of Health & Social Care, when asked about Yeadon’s views. “COVID-19 vaccines are the best way to protect people from coronavirus and will save thousands of lives.”

Recent reports of blood clots and abnormal bleeding in a small number of recipients of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine have cast doubt on that shot’s safety, leading several European countries to suspend its use. The developments are likely to fuel vaccine hesitancy further, although there is no evidence of a causative link between the AstraZeneca product and the affected patients’ conditions.

Yeadon didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article. In reporting this story, Reuters reviewed thousands of his tweets over the past two years, along with other writings and statements. It also interviewed five people who know him, including four of his former colleagues at Pfizer.

A Pfizer spokesman declined to comment on Yeadon and his stint with the company, beyond emphasizing that there is no evidence that its vaccine, which it developed with its German partner BioNTech, causes infertility in women.

References to Yeadon’s petition appear on the website of a group founded by influential vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., scion of the American political dynasty, who recently was banned on Instagram because of his COVID-19 vaccine posts. 

Syndicated writer and vaccine skeptic Michelle Malkin reported Yeadon’s concern about fertility in a column last month under the headline, “Pregnant Women: Beware of COVID Shots.” And a blog with an alarmist headline – “Head of Pfizer Research: Covid vaccine is female sterilization” – was shared thousands of times on Facebook.

In October, Yeadon wrote a column for the United Kingdom’s Daily Mail newspaper that also appeared on MailOnline, one of the world’s most-visited news websites. It declared that deaths caused by COVID-19, which then totaled about 45,000 in Britain, will soon “fizzle out” and Britons “should immediately be allowed to resume normal life.” Since then, the disease has killed about another 80,000 people in the UK.

Yeadon isn’t the only respected scientist to have challenged the scientific consensus on COVID-19 and expressed controversial views.

Michael Levitt, a winner of the Nobel Prize for chemistry, told the Stanford Daily last summer that he expected the pandemic would end in the United States in 2020 and kill no more than 175,000 Americans – a third of the current total – and “when we come to look back, we’re going to say that wasn’t such a terrible disease.” 

And Luc Montagnier, another Nobel Prize winner, said last year that he believed the coronavirus was created in a Chinese lab. Many experts doubt that, but so far there is no way to prove or disprove it.

Levitt told Reuters that his projections about the pandemic in the United States were wrong, but he still believes COVID-19 eventually won’t be seen as “a terrible disease” and that lockdowns “caused a great deal of collateral damage and may not have been needed.” Montagnier didn’t respond to a request for comment.

What gives Yeadon particular credibility is the fact that he worked at Pfizer, says Imran Ahmed, chief executive of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an organization that combats online misinformation. “Yeadon’s background gives his dangerous and harmful messages false credibility.”

In a debate last fall in Britain’s House of Commons about the government’s response to the pandemic, parliamentarian Richard Drax called Yeadon an “eminent” scientist, and cited his view “that the virus is both manageable and nearing its end.” Drax didn’t respond to a request for comment.

More recently, David Kurten, a member of the London Assembly – an elected body – tweeted there is a “real danger” that COVID-19 vaccines could leave women infertile. “The ‘cure’ must not be worse than the ‘disease’,” Kurten wrote. He, too, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Why Yeadon transformed from mainstream scientist to COVID-19 vaccine skeptic remains a mystery. Thousands of his tweets stretching back to the start of the pandemic document a dramatic shift in his views – early on, he supported a vaccine strategy. But they offer few clues to explain his radical turnabout.

Some former colleagues at Pfizer say they no longer recognize the Mike Yeadon they once knew. They described him as a knowledgeable and intelligent man who always insisted on seeing evidence and generally avoided publicity.

One of those ex-colleagues is Sterghios A. Moschos, who holds degrees in molecular biology and pharmaceutics. In December, Yeadon posted on Twitter a spoof sign that said, “DITCH THE MASK.” Moschos tweeted back: “Mike what hell ?! Are you out to actively kill people? You do realize that if you are wrong, your suggestions will result in deaths ??”

A Twitter exchange between Michael Yeadon and a former Pfizer colleague from December 2020. Twitter/Screenshot

“It’ll all fade away”

Yeadon joined Twitter in October 2018 and soon became a prolific user of the platform. The thousands of his tweets reviewed by Reuters were provided by archive.org, which stores web pages, and FollowersAnalysis, a social media analytics company.

When the coronavirus pandemic reached the UK in March 2020, Yeadon initially expressed support for developing a vaccine. He tweeted: “Covid 19 is not going away. Until we have a vaccine or herd immunity” – natural resistance resulting from prior exposure to the virus – “all that can be done is to slow its spread.” A week later he tweeted: “A vaccine might be along towards the end of 2021, if we’re really lucky.”

When a fellow Twitter user said vaccines “harm many, many people,” Yeadon replied: “Ok, please refuse it, but do not impede its flow to neutrals or those keen to get it, thanks.”

After Mathai Mammen, the global head of research & development for Janssen, the pharmaceutical division of Johnson & Johnson, posted on LinkedIn last summer that his company had started clinical trials of a vaccine, Yeadon responded: “Lovely to see this milestone, Mathai!” Mammen didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But as early as April, Yeadon had begun voicing unorthodox views.

While Britain was still in its first lockdown last spring, he declared: “there is nothing especially virulent or frightening about covid 19 … it’ll all fade away … Just a common & garden virus, to which the world overreacted.” And he predicted in a subsequent tweet that it was “unlikely” the death toll in the UK would reach 40,000.

By September 2020, Yeadon’s statements were attracting attention beyond Twitter. At the time, a movement had emerged in Britain against lockdowns and other restrictions meant to curb the disease. 

He co-authored a lengthy article on a website called Lockdown Sceptics. It declared that the “pandemic as an event in the UK is essentially complete.” And, “There is no biological principle that leads us to expect a second wave.” Britain soon entered a much more deadly second wave.

On Oct. 16, he wrote another lengthy article for the same website: “There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. I’ve never heard such nonsense talked about vaccines. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease.”

In November, Yeadon appeared in a 32-minute video for the anti-lockdown group, Unlocked, sitting in a shed with a motorbike behind him. A shorter version appeared on Facebook titled, “The pandemic is over.”

Yeadon called for an end to mass testing and claimed that 30% of the population was already immune to COVID-19 even before the pandemic started. By the time of the recording, he said, there was little scope for the virus to spread further in the UK because most people had already been infected or were immune.

Those views ran counter to the findings of the World Health Organization. In December – nine months after declaring the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic – the agency said testing suggested that less than 10% of the world’s population had shown evidence of infection.

Yeadon’s petition to the European Medicines Agency to halt vaccine trials followed on Dec. 1. The agency didn’t respond to requests for comment for this article.

In late 2020, Michael Yeadon co-authored a petition to the European Medicines Agency, a regulator, to halt COVID-19 vaccine trials. Above, the agency’s headquarters in Amsterdam. REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

“This does not sound like the guy I knew 20 years ago.”

Mark Treherne, who worked with Michael Yeadon at Pfizer

It’s impossible to measure the impact of Yeadon’s claim that COVID-19 vaccines could cause female infertility. Anecdotally, though, many women have bought into it.

Bonnie Jacobson, a waitress in Brooklyn, New York, can’t recall where she first heard about the fertility issue. But she told Reuters that it has made her hesitant to take a vaccine, as she’d like to have children “sooner than later.”

“That’s my main concern,” she said. “Let more research come out.” After recently declining to get vaccinated, she said, the tavern where she worked fired her. Jacobson’s employer didn’t respond to a request for comment.

According to Yeadon’s LinkedIn profile, he joined Pfizer in 1995; the company had a large operation then in Sandwich in southern England. He rose to become a vice president and head of allergy and respiratory research.

Many former colleagues say they are baffled by his transformation.

Mark Treherne, chairman of Talisman Therapeutics in Cambridge, England, said he overlapped with Yeadon at Pfizer for about two years and sometimes had coffee with him. “He always seemed knowledgeable, intelligible, a good scientist. We were both trained as pharmacologists … so we had something in common.”

“I obviously disagree with Mike and his recent views,” he said. Treherne’s company is researching brain inflammation, which he said could be triggered by coronaviruses. “This does not sound like the guy I knew 20 years ago.”

Moschos, the ex-colleague who took issue with one of Yeadon’s tweets, said he considered him a mentor when they worked together at the drugmaker from 2008 to 2011. More recently, Moschos has been researching whether it’s possible to test for COVID-19 with breath samples. He said Yeadon’s views are “a huge disappointment.” He recounted hearing Yeadon in a radio interview last year.

“There was a tone in his voice that was nothing like I ever remembered of Mike,” Moschos said. “It was very angry, very bitter.”

John LaMattina, a former president of Pfizer Global Research and Development, also knew Yeadon. “His group was very successful and discovered a number of compounds that entered early clinical development,” LaMattina told Reuters in an email. He said Yeadon and his team were let go by Pfizer, however, when the company made the strategic decision to exit the therapeutic area they were researching.

LaMattina said he had lost touch with Yeadon in recent years. Shown links to Yeadon’s video declaring the pandemic over and a copy of his petition to halt COVID-19 clinical trials, LaMattina replied: “This is all news to me and a bit of a shock. This seems out of character for the person I knew.”

After losing his job at Pfizer in 2011, Yeadon set up a biotech company called Ziarco with three Pfizer colleagues. They wanted to continue researching promising therapies that targeted allergies and inflammatory diseases, ideas Pfizer had been developing but were at risk of being abandoned. Yeadon served as Ziarco’s chief executive.

“I simply showed chutzpah and asked the senior-most people up the research line” at Pfizer to support the venture, Yeadon later recalled in an interview with Forbes. “And they said, ‘OK, assuming you raise private capital.’”

In 2012, Ziarco announced it had initially secured funding from several investors, including Pfizer’s venture capital arm. Other investors later joined, including an Amgen Inc corporate venture capital fund. Amgen didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“The intensity of effort took me away almost completely from my family and other interests for almost five years and you get only one life,” Yeadon told Forbes.

On Twitter, Yeadon said he is married and has two adult daughters, and described a tough childhood – he said his mother committed suicide when he was 18 months old and his father, a doctor, abandoned him when he was 16. He said he was saved by a local social worker and adopted by a Jewish family whose “open handed love turned my life around.”

While at Ziarco, Yeadon also worked as a consultant for several years at two Boston-area biotech companies, Apellis Pharmaceuticals and Pulmatrix Inc. Both firms said he no longer advises them. A spokeswoman for Apellis said, “His views do not reflect those of Apellis.” She didn’t elaborate.

After losing his job at Pfizer in 2011, Yeadon set up a biotech company called Ziarco. It was later bought by Swiss drugmaker Novartis. 

The hard work at Ziarco paid off. In January 2017, Novartis acquired the company for an upfront payment of $325 million, with the promise of $95 million more if certain milestones were met, according to Novartis’ 2017 annual report. Novartis was betting on the promise of a Ziarco drug, known as ZPL389, that had the potential to be a “first-in-class oral treatment for moderate-to-severe eczema,” a common and sometimes debilitating rash.

Reuters wasn’t able to determine how much money Yeadon made from Novartis’ purchase of Ziarco. But in January 2020 he tweeted: “Oddly enough, I made millions from founding & growing a biotech company, creating many highly paid jobs, using my PhD & persuasion around the world.”

Last July, Novartis disclosed it had discontinued the ZPL389 clinical development program and had taken a $485 million write down. A Novartis spokesman said the company decided to terminate the program after disappointing efficacy data in an early-stage clinical trial.

“I’ll soon be gone”

Earlier this year, a group of Yeadon’s former Pfizer colleagues expressed their concern in a private letter, according to a draft reviewed by Reuters.

“We have become acutely aware of your views on COVID-19 over the last few months … the single mindedness, lack of scientific rigour and one sided interpretation of often poor quality data is far removed from the Mike Yeadon we so respected and enjoyed working with.”

Noting his “vast following on social media” and that his claim about infertility “has spread globally,” the group wrote, “We are very worried that you are putting people’s health at risk.”

Reuters couldn’t determine whether Yeadon received the letter.

On Feb. 3, Yeadon’s Twitter account had a message for his 91,000 followers: “A tweet recently appeared under my ID, which was horribly offensive. As a result my account was locked. I of course deleted it. I want you to know of course that I didn’t write it.” A Twitter spokesman declined to comment.

Yeadon didn’t make clear what tweet he was referring to. But shortly after, several Twitter users and a blog called Zelo Street posted screenshots of numerous offensive anti-Muslim tweets from Yeadon’s account from about a year ago. Many were captured at the time by archive.org.

The next day, on Feb. 4, Yeadon cryptically mentioned in a tweet, “I’ll soon be gone.”

Two days later, he was off Twitter. His followers were greeted with this message: “This account doesn’t exist.” His LinkedIn profile also soon changed, now stating that he is “Fully retired.”

Clare Craig, a British pathologist, compared Yeadon’s treatment on Twitter – where some users derided his views as nonsense and dangerous – to medieval societies burning heretics at the stake.

“There is no other way to see it than the burning of the witches,” said Craig, who has criticized lockdowns and COVID-19 tests. “Science is always a series of questions and the testing of those questions and when we are not allowed to ask those questions, then science is lost.”

She said she spoke to Yeadon after he closed his Twitter account. “He will have a think about how he will contribute in the future,” she said.