Several posts on social networks, shared several thousand times, indicate that Pfizer does not recommend its vaccine in case of breastfeeding. On May 4, in the show Do not touch My TV !Marc Doyer, invited to talk about his wife who died the day before from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, said: “You have, a few days ago, Pfizer who says that women who are going to breastfeed should not be vaccinated whereas three or four months ago, the Minister of Health is very proud on TV to vaccinate a woman pregnant“.
All of this information is taken out of context and is therefore false.
To say this, all these people rely on the screenshot of a document presented as “Published by Pfizer”. The author of one of the posts explains that this screenshot comes from the documents “declassified by Pfizer”. Since the beginning of January, a federal judge in Texas has ordered the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make public all the data on which the FDA relied to approve the Pfizer vaccine against Covid-19. Some of this data is freely available on the internet and is regularly accompanied by analyzes that are often false and taken out of context under the hashtag “PfizerGate“.
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We read on this screenshot that “for women of childbearing potential, pregnancy must be excluded prior to vaccination and that women of childbearing potential are advised not to avoid pregnancy for at least two months after their second dose“. Regarding breastfeeding, it is indicated that we “It is not known whether the COVID-19 BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine passes into breast milk and a risk to newborns and infants cannot be excluded, therefore the vaccine should not be used during lactation.“
This screenshot is from a document written by UK medicines regulatory authorities at the time the Pfizer vaccine entered the UK market on December 8, 2020. At that time, this category of the population was simply not eligible for vaccination. Pregnant women were indeed not part of clinical trials and faced with the lack of data, it was still impossible to recommend their vaccination in a safe way. For example, in France, the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) initially decided not to include pregnant women in its vaccination campaign.due to lack of data on this population“. To find the original document, currently shared on social networks, we used the “WaybackMachine”, a site that archives modified or deleted web pages.
Since then, the British authorities have modified their information document concerning the vaccine produced by Pfizer. In the latest version, from May 5, 2022, it reads “that administration of the COVID-19 BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine during pregnancy should only be considered when the potential benefits outweigh the potential risks to the mother and fetus.“With regard to breastfeeding, it is indicated that we”unknown whether the COVID-19 BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine is excreted in breast milk.” There is therefore no longer any contraindication to vaccination during pregnancy and breastfeeding, as is the potential risk for the child.
The British health authorities, like the majority of health authorities worldwide, update their recommendations according to the evolution of the data reported to them. For example, currently the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates that “vaccinating a breastfeeding mother against COVID-19 poses no risk to her child“and that she”may even help protect their baby from infection with the virus“. In France, the National Medicines Safety Agency (ANSM) also recommends vaccinating pregnant and breastfeeding women and indicates that”To date, no signal has been identified in pregnant and breastfeeding women with all the vaccines against Covid-19 available in France..