Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Monday falsely claimed that the vaccine against COVID-19 does not work on variants of the coronavirus and alleged that "Big Pharma" had a more effective vaccine "sitting on the shelf."
Paul made the allegation during an appearance on Newsmax's "Spicer & Co.," hosted by former Trump White House press secretary Sean Spicer.
Responding to Spicer's questioning about "a lot of big pharmaceutical companies making a lot of money, that have a lot to gain by, sort of, say, Let's have another booster and let's have more people have to get vaccinated," Paul said, "Why doesn't Joe Biden speed up the second vaccine? I think we're long overdue on the second vaccine ... They have the ability to create these vaccines within a month or two. The one for the delta variant's been sitting on the shelf now for months. Why aren't they using it? 'Cause the thing is, is Big Pharma or is a monetary incentive — have we already bought so much of the old vaccine that we've got to use up the old vaccine before we use the new vaccine?"
Paul's assertion is completely false.
The available COVID-19 vaccines have been shown to be effective against the virus and previously discovered variants. And Paul presented no evidence that pharmaceutical companies are holding back other vaccines.
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