Pfizer is in the firing line for UK complaints but is it one individual or lobby group time-wasting?
By Chris Wheal
May 09, 2024
Keyboard warriors: one six complaints come from just two complainants
Pharma firms in the UK are dogged by keyboard warriors: serial complainers who tie up companies and regulators over the tiniest of issues, multiple times. Pfizer is the latest to be fingered.
In the UK, the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI) operates its Code of Practice for the Pharmaceutical Industry. This is policed by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA).
Two recently completed cases to the regulator accusing Pfizer of breaches of the code make clear there’s one person, or organisation, taking pot shots at the pharma firm. Read on to find out who it might be.
Repeated complaints
A complaint made on 3 January 2023 and completed on 4 March this year includes this line: “The complainant stated that they had to complain yet again about the alleged misuse of social media by Pfizer UK and its disregard for the Code.”
A second complaint, dated 15 February 2023 and completed on 1 March this year, includes the following:
“The complainant stated that they had written to the PMCPA on numerous occasions to complain about Pfizer’s misuse of social media to misleadingly and illegally promote their Covid vaccine. The complainant further stated that in some previous cases Pfizer had attempted to defend or mitigate their offences by reference to their desire to maintain high standards and also citing the various processes, procedures and training they had in place to prevent such occurrences.”
Two complainants
The official report will sound familiar to anyone used to seeing internet trolls and conspiracy theorists ranting against Big Pharma: “The complainant alleged that it turned out that such misbehaviour was even more widespread than they had thought, extended right to the top of their UK operation and was apparently continuing to this very day.
“It had just been brought to the complainant’s attention that the attached tweet was re-tweeted by a Pfizer senior employee. It was re-tweeted using their Twitter account, the profile of which described the employee as a senior Pfizer UK employee.”
This isn’t the first time there have been multiple complaints from one person or group. The PMCPA’s most recent annual report, for 2021, lists 121 cases, of which “21 cases arose collectively from the two most frequent complainants”. In round numbers that’s one in six complaints coming from just two complainants.
Anonymity
And they don’t often put their name on the complaints either. In 2021 the PMCPA broke down its complainants to:
- 7 by employees/ex-employees
- 18 from members of the public
- 2 from organisations
- 26 uncategorised anonymous complaints
- 29 from anonymous health professionals
- 11 from anonymous employees or ex-employees
- 8 where the complainant did not provide sufficient information to be attributed to one of the above categories
It gets worse. Most complaints involve multiple accusations of code breeches on the principle that if you throw enough mud, some of it must stick. The 121 cases led to 910 matters that had to be considered. So, although 82 cases (69%) had a ruling against them, only 278 of the 910 (31%) of the individual matters were upheld.
There was just one public reprimand, one audit and six breaches of undertakings. There were 23 breeches of clause two. The sanction for that is a finger wagging: an advert is placed in the medical, nursing and pharmaceutical press.
Time consuming
Companies have to go through a huge amount of time and effort to deal with these complaints. The regulator averaged 37.7 weeks in 2021 (up from 27.7 weeks in 2020). It reported: “This is predominantly a consequence of the increase in the volume and complexity of complaints.”
The PMCPA only publishes its annual report when all complaints lodged that year have been concluded. Keval Dabba, associate director at the PMCPA, told PharmaLifeScience: “Whilst the majority of cases received in 2022 had been adjudicated on by the panel by the end of 2023, there is an outstanding case that is waiting to be heard by the Code of Practice Appeal Board; it is for this reason that the 2022 annual report is yet to be published.”
Dabba acknowledged that the annual report being two years late is an issue. “We are in the process of evaluating changes to the reporting cycle and the way data is presented to improve the timeliness of reporting while ensuring comparisons to prior years can be made,” he said.
Pfizer allegations
One Pfizer case concerned: “a series of three tweets posted on the Twitter feed of Pfizer UK that included a link to an article published in the online edition of Pulse Today”. Pulse is a medical journal for doctors, not the public. It took a year to decide there was no breach of any parts of the code.
The complaint that was found to have breached clause two involved a tweet that the complainant said “included relative efficacy rates without any information about absolute efficacy rates and that no safety data or safety information was provided, and therefore that Pfizer had misleadingly and illegally promoted its Covid-19 vaccine”.
A UK employee retweeted a tweet by a colleague in the US. The tweet in the US complied with US regulation.
Pfizer issued a statement at the time, accepting the findings and flagging how many employees it had. The statement included UK medical director Dr Berkeley Phillips, who had retweeted his colleague in the US.
He said: “As discussed in the PMCPA case report, the retweet that is the subject of the complaint was accidental and unintentional. That said, we immediately accepted the case ruling and do everything we can to ensure that our employees adhere to our strict social media policy and the industry Code of Practice when using their personal social media.”
Who is behind the complaints?
So who is the machine gunner firing these complaints at Pfizer? During the Covid lockdown a new lobby group formed to demand schools be reopened. UsForThem has since had a fascination with Pfizer. It posted on what’s now called X (formerly Twitter) about the recent ruling, calling it “the most serious breach there is under the UK Code of Practice rules”.
This week, UsForThem post on X about a case it says is ongoing against Pfizer. The message says“UsForThem has been briefed that an **EIGHTH** case against Pfizer is currently being pursued by the UK medicines industry regulator”.
No such case is listed on the PMCPA website, though PharmaLifeScience has confirmed the PMCPA has received a new complaint and has asked Pfizer for its response. It’s not yet an open case. As such, it’s not something Pfizer would comment on, unlike, it seems, UsForThem.
The PMCPA website lists only one complaint in the name of UsForThem, back in 2021. It was against Pfizer. UsForThem lost.
Transparency
PharmaLifeScience asked UsForThem if they were the anonymous complainer, how many complaints they had made and how many were against Pfizer. If we get an answer, we’ll update this. It might be a like-minded individual who informs UsForThem when they complain. We can’t know.
Ben Kingsley, the head of legal affairs at UsForThem, recently complained: “The consequences for Pfizer and the individuals concerned continue to be derisory. This hopeless system of regulation for a multi-billion dollar life and death industry has become a sham, in dire need of reform.”
The UsForThem website says: “Our objective is to restore accountability, ethics, transparency and good governance to democracy.” Transparency over who is making all these complaints – wouldn’t that be good?
PMCPA jurisdiction
A condition of membership of the ABPI is to abide by the Code of Conduct and submit to the jurisdiction of the PMCPA. Non-ABPI members can also choose to follow the code and be policed by the PMCPA.
There are 63 ABPI member companies and a further 100 non-member companies who accept the PMCPA’s jurisdiction. The alternative is to be regulated by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).
For the avoidance of doubt, the PMCPA has no role, and makes no determination, in relation to the assessment of a medicine’s safety or efficacy.
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