I must be missing something here…. from HuffPost:
The Food and Drug Administration said Wednesday vials of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine may contain up to 40% more doses than originally thought, meaning medical officials could potentially use the limited supplies on hand to inoculate many more people against the coronavirus. (emphasis added)
These Covid-19 vaccines are supposed to be science rushing to the rescue of humanity, but ‘may contain’ just does not seem to me to be a scientific term.
So I went to the official Pfizer instructions for handling, thawing, diluting and administering the vaccine. It is interesting to read — and a bit scary to realize all of the steps that have to be done perfectly to avoid injecting someone with ruined (and useless) solution.
Here are the bits that are pertinent to the issue of ‘extra doses’:
The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine Multiple Dose Vial contains a frozen suspension that does not contain preservative and must be thawed and diluted prior to administration.
…..
Dilute the vial contents using 1.8 mL of 0.9% Sodium Chloride Injection, USP (not provided) to form the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.
…..
Using aseptic technique, cleanse the vial stopper with a single-use antiseptic swab, and withdraw 0.3 mL of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.
So there is some unspecified quantity of ‘frozen suspension’ in the vial, you add 1.8ml of saline and withdraw .3ml to give each injection. Since we don’t know how much of the now-thawed suspension we started with, we don’t know the final volume of the prepared vial, but it is something more than 1.8ml.
I found it VERY curious that the Pfizer data sheet does not say anywhere (that I could find) how many doses are in each vial. We have all heard and read in the news that there are 5 doses per vial and 975 in each ‘pizza box’, etc. but there is NOTHING in the official instructions about how many doses are in a vial.
I also don’t know if you are supposed to use ALL of the liquid in a vial when loading syringes — I know you don’t want air in the syringe, which is hard to keep out when sucking the last bit of liquid out, but here is another issue:
Gently invert the vial containing the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine 10 times to mix.
• Do not shake.
• Inspect the vaccine in the vial.
• The vaccine will be an off-white suspension. Do not use if vaccine is discolored or contains particulate matter.
(emphasis added)
We are accustomed to shaking stuff to mix it, but this vaccine is apparently VERY fragile, to the point where just SHAKING that vial a few times will DESTROY it…… how often have you seen a nurse flick a syringe to get that pesky air bubble out of it? Seems likely that would ruin the fragile vaccine, and trying to suck the last bit of liquid out of a little vial to squeeze out that one extra dose would likely get some air in the syringe, wouldn’t it?
So that brings me to my complaint:
How could Pfizer and the FDA — after all of this rigorous development and testing — not KNOW how many doses of the vaccine are in a vial?
There either IS enough mRNA material in the vial for FIVE, SIX of SEVEN doses or there IS NOT. There is no MAYBE here.
Either you CAN safely get SEVEN doses out of a properly diluted vial or you CANNOT.
I think it’s pretty likely that when they did the clinical trials, they diluted the vials, got a maximum of 5 doses out of each vial (consistent with the short defrosted shelf life of this vaccine) and didn’t fiddle around with squeezing out extra doses. So if you didn’t test the effectiveness of the vaccine when you got 6 or 7 doses out of a vial, how can you claim the same results?
It also seems to me that it wouldn’t be very difficult for Pfizer and the FDA to very quickly announce that they pulled some vials out of the shipping process, analyzed them carefully, and verified that there is enough actual mRNA material in EVERY vial to DEFINITELY be able to get SEVEN doses….. OR THERE ISN’T.
Look, I’m a very strong vaccine proponent. I’ve consistently told everyone that I’ll be first in line to take this vaccine as soon as Dr. Anthony Fauci tells me it’s safe and effective…. which he’s done.
But this episode isn’t doing anything to bolster my faith and enthusiasm for this vaccine.
They have GOT to do better than ‘may contain’.
Cheers.