Were COVID-19 vaccines manufactured by military contractors rather than by Pfizer and Moderna? No, that's not true: FDA inspection records show the vaccines were made in drug industry labs. Pfizer pointed Lead Stories to publicly available documents about its facilities in Belgium, Germany and at least two locations in the U.S., including Kalamazoo, Michigan. Under Operation Warp Speed, the government provided funding and the military assisted with distribution, but the vaccines were developed and produced by pharmaceutical manufacturers under strict regulations.
The claim appeared in a post and video on Facebook on November 14, 2024. The video shows Robert F. Kennedy Jr. saying:
It turns out that, you know, the vaccines were developed not by Moderna and Pfizer. They were developed by NIH [National Institutes of Health]. They're owned -- the patents are owned 50 percent -- by NIH.
Nor were they manufactured by Pfizer or by Moderna. They were manufactured by military contractors and basically, Pfizer and Moderna were paid to put their stamps on those vaccines as if they came from the pharmaceutical industry.
But you know that's not what they were doing. They were coming from, you know, this was a military project from the beginning.
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Wed Nov 27 17:11:35 2024 UTC)
The post didn't provide any proof to back up its assertion that COVID-19 vaccines were manufactured by military contractors rather than by Pfizer and Moderna.
The video in the Facebook reel was taken from Russell Brand's "Stay Free" podcast, which was streamed on May 12, 2023, and featured then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The clip (archived here) begins at about the 35:40 mark into the show.
Food and Drug Administration
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which works to make sure medicines, vaccines and medical devices are safe, effective and secure, responded to the claim in the social media post in an email to Lead Stories on November 29, 2024. An FDA spokesperson said:
The claims in this social media post are false.
We refer you to the Summary Basis of Regulatory Action (links listed below) for Comirnaty [Pfizer] and Spikevax [Moderna] (COVID-19 Vaccine, mRNA) to obtain information about the facilities involved in the manufacture of these vaccines. A description of the activities performed, and inspectional histories, are also included in those documents.
The documents cited by the FDA make no mention of any military facilities involved in the production of the vaccines.
Additional information about the COVID-19 vaccines approved or authorized for use in the U.S. can be found on the FDA's website here.
Pfizer
In a November 27, 2024, email to Lead Stories, Francesca Russo, director of global media relations at Pfizer, also called the claims in the social media post "false." She continued:
We operate one of the most sophisticated supply chain systems in the industry, with over 35 Pfizer-owned sites globally.
For the COVID-19 vaccine specifically, Pfizer activated and continues to use its extensive U.S. and European manufacturing network, including thousands of highly skilled workers in multiple states and localities, to produce the vaccine. Within this company-owned and run network, we currently have the capacity to produce billions of doses annually, if needed.
Our manufacturing and distribution approach continues to be largely led from our Kalamazoo (US) and Puurs (Belgium) sites, however several other Pfizer sites are involved in the process such as our existing distribution centers for the COVID-19 distribution in Pleasant Prairie, WI and in Karlsruhe, Germany.
Additional information on the manufacturing and distribution of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine can be found here.
Vaccine expert
In the video, Kennedy says Operation Warp Speed was "a military project from the beginning," but it wasn't. The operation was a joint effort between vaccine makers and the government to facilitate and speed up the development of COVID vaccines. The government funded billions in development monies and the military helped with distribution.
Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of medicine specializing in infectious diseases at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as part of their Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He's also part of the COVID vaccine work group that deals specifically with the COVID-19 vaccines.
In a November 27, 2024, phone interview with Lead Stories, Schaffner said:
The military does not have the facilities and, therefore, did not manufacture the mRNA COVID vaccines. They were created and manufactured by the two manufacturers with whom we are, of course, familiar: Pfizer and Moderna.
Schaffner notes that the approval process is extremely rigorous:
All vaccines have to be licensed by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] that we use in the U.S. population.
The FDA not only looks at the qualities of the vaccine -- its safety and effectiveness in various clinical trials -- but they also have to investigate and certify, approve the manufacturing facilities.
We have FDA inspectors actually going to the actual facilities where the vaccines are manufactured in order to make sure that the facilities meet all those standards for good hygienic practices.
Read more
Additional Lead Stories fact checks of claims about vaccines can be found here.
Other Lead Stories fact checks of claims involving Robert F. Kennedy Jr can be found here.
