The clarifications that Spallanzani must provide regarding the Sputnik vaccine and cooperation with the Russians

Thanks to the wide change in perception due to the war against Ukraine, interesting details are beginning to emerge about the support and promotion shown by some very specific subjects in Italy towards the Sputnik vaccine, sponsored by the main Russian sovereign fund RDIF and its master, the Putinist oligarchs that are today exposed to international sanctions. The reader will remember the doubts that I and a large number of international colleagues expressed about the data published by Russian scientists about their vaccine: data that is not defined as incomplete, and which, above all, in the presence of many obvious problems and inconsistencies, is never made available in a competitive manner And transparent to the international scientific community, so that its consistency can be judged.

To those criticisms, the Kremlin-controlled media responded directly in a sporadic fashion: I was identified at the time as a publicity-seeking jackal, which was acting in accordance with the smear campaign organized by western pharmaceutical companiesevidently without a shadow of an answer to the first or second letter published in The Lancet with our illustrious colleagues – including some Russian scientists – asking for clarification and data.

While the Putinism mud machine is a normal management, and in a sense an expected reaction given the extent and importance of the interests at stake, not only economically but also geopolitically where the Sputnik vaccine was found, which from the outset aroused surprise and consternation to see the resolute position of the Spallanzani Institute in favor of The vaccine, without addressing any of the problems raised by the international community, but not mentioned, and without another database could dispel such doubts.

The very early agreements between Spallanzani and the RDIF, mediated by the politics of the Lazio region, were in themselves an anomaly, because in normal scientific cooperation, researchers and scientific institutions cooperate, without particular financial and political intermediaries. ; However, in this case, regional politics immediately took the field, giving the impression of using the Spallanzani Institute as if it were a direct dependence on himself.

This collaboration, in the end, produced a prototype, which states that against the Omicron variant, the Sputnik vaccine will be better than the other, however, like much of the scientific production of this vaccine, it suffers from such problems, as making it absolutely incredible. . sustainable outcome; In addition to the fact that the mandate of the Ethics Committee of Spallanzani, referred to in the preprint, refers to a study quite different from that published, leading to well-founded suspicion that the preprint, in addition to being scientifically flawed, is also a study of It is absolutely permitted in the stated form.

Why did Spalanzani act on Sputnik ignoring every problem raised, and act in the manner described? And why did local policies spark trials, licenses, and even the production of a vaccine that was never authorized by the EMA, let alone AIFA? In front of these questions comes the testimony collected by the press journalist Jacopo Iacoboni, From a dedicated article He writes of an important Spalanzani executive: “In June 2020, two months before Putin announced the approval of Sputnik, he was contacted – written by one source, confirmed by another – by Russian state officials who offered him a lot of money (about 250 thousand euros), but even before he finished it, he called the police and in fact a few days later two men from the services appeared at the institute to talk to him. ”

If Iacoboni’s two sources tell the truth, it turns out to be an easy cause for a lot of interest in Italy and Spallanzani compared to a product that could also be excellent, but whose efficacy has been completely improperly documented and its quality has been found to be poorly guaranteed, according to some regulatory agencies such as the Brazilian Agency .

Now, in order to dispel such doubts, clarity is required on the part of an institute with such a glorious history behind it: First of all, what kind of checks do you intend to conduct, in the face of statements of unprecedented danger, such as those that have appeared in the press? Moreover, at the time and after its publication, what idea did Spallanzani’s colleagues have about scientific problems that have been deplored by a large part of the national and international scientific community? Regarding the ethics committee of the institute, no one has anything to say, about the congruence between the protocol and the study described in the preliminary version published in cooperation with the Russian aesthetic, which was explicitly relaunched by RDIF propaganda, and the protocol and study corresponding to the ethical license mentioned in the same version primary?