Friday, Sep. 24, 2021
Did the FDA redact a COVID-19 vaccine ingredient because it’s a mysterious substance?
When the Food and Drug Administration published a list of the ingredients that make up Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine, one was redacted.
An FDA spokesperson told Lead Stories that if the company considers the ingredient a trade secret or a confidential commercial item, the ingredient gets redacted on documents that will be seen by the public.
Then it said anyone interested in seeing the unredacted ingredient list could file a Freedom of Information Act request.
A little research found that the missing ingredient is salt water.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- European Medicines Agency Summary of product characteristics
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.
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