Foreign matter has been discovered in five unused vials of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine near Tokyo, Japan, and one vial in Osaka Prefecture, officials said on Tuesday.
The vials containing white floating matter belong to the same Pfizer vaccine lot, said the cities of Sagamihara, and Kamakura, and Sakai, according to the Kyodo News agency. They requested that Pfizer should review the substances in the vials.
Officials told Kyodo that contaminants were found in several sites in Sagamihara, one site in Kamakura, and one site in Sakai this week. The Pfizer lot number was identified by the officials as FF5357.
They said that the Pfizer doses containing foreign matter were not used.
Pfizer officials Japan said in a news conference Wednesday that the matter is likely ingredients that haven’t fully dissolved, reported the Mainichi Daily News. It didn’t affect the quality or safety of the vaccine, the firm said. The Epoch Times has contacted the company for comment.
Several weeks ago, the Japanese Health Ministry suspended 1.63 million doses of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine due to contamination. Weeks later, government officials in early September confirmed that three people died after receiving a shot from the since-suspended batches of Moderna’s vaccine, which uses similar mRNA technology as Pfizer’s.
An investigation later revealed that stainless steel particulates had contaminated the Moderna doses. The two firms traced it back to a production site in Spain.
“Stainless steel is routinely used in heart valves, joint replacements, and metal sutures and staples. As such, it is not expected that injection of the particles identified in these lots in Japan would result in increased medical risk,” the companies said in their statement.
“The rare presence of stainless steel particles in the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine does not pose an undue risk to patient safety and it does not adversely affect the benefit/risk profile of the product,” Takeda Pharmaceutical said in a joint statement with Moderna in late August. Takeda, a Moderna partner, distributes the vaccine in Japan.
Moderna and Takeda, meanwhile, said they would recall several batches of their vaccine due to the contaminants. It’s unclear if Pfizer will initiate a recall.
About 500,000 people have received shots from the three suspended Moderna batches, Taro Kono, Japan’s minister in charge of the vaccination campaign, told reporters on Friday. Moderna said it cannot confirm how many doses were distributed from the batches.
COVID-19 is the disease caused by the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) virus.
Georgia's largest county is prepared to name a paid lobbyist for liberal voting law activist Stacey Abrams' group to be the next chairwoman of its election board, drawing immediate condemnation from the state's top election official.
Fulton County's Board of Commissioners confirmed Tuesday it is considering hiring Cathy Woolard, a former Atlanta city council president and mayoral candidate, as the next chair of the county's election board. A vote is expected as early as Wednesday, according to the commission's meeting docket.
Woolard was hired earlier this year as a lobbyist for Fair Fight Action Inc., a voting law advocacy group founded by Abrams, and was paid in excess of $10,000 to to lobby the Georgia government on "social welfare" and "voting rights" before she terminated her lobbying registration earlier this week, state records reviewed by Just the News show.
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger immediately condemned the idea in a statement Tuesday night, saying Woolard's appointment would create a conflict of interest that further erodes public trust in Fulton County's election integrity.
"Fulton County needs to think again before appointing someone who is bought and paid for by Stacey Abrams to run elections in Fulton County," Raffensperger said. "Appointing such a blatantly partisan and conflicted individual, who is literally on Stacey Abrams's payroll, will do incredible damage to the already terrible reputation Fulton has for running elections."
Raffensperger said the personnel move only further heightens his desire to complete a state takeover of Fulton County's elections before the 2022 election season.
"If the Fulton County Commissioners go through with this partisan and irresponsible selection, I will seek the removal of Fulton's entire election board through SB202, Georgia's new election law," he warned.
A bipartisan panel appointed by the State Election Board is currently conducting an investigation of Fulton County's election counting in November 2020 after records obtained by Just the News show a state contractor observed widespread irregularities including double scanning of ballots, insecure transport of ballots and possible violations of voter ID protections. If the investigation confirms such problems, it could prompt a state takeover of the county's election process, leaving vote counting in the hands of a special superintendent.
That is absolute insanity.