The last three batches of an intramuscular suspension called «EpiVacCorona», developed by specialists from the Novosibirsk State Research Center «Vector» and named by them as a vaccine against covid, were entered into the register of Roszdravnadzor on New Year's Eve, December 30. Prior to this, three plants produced 20-30 batches of EpiVacCorona per month. True, we do not know the size of each batch, how many doses are in it, this is considered something of a trade secret. But now January ends, and there is no production at all. Optimists in conversations with Novaya explained this by the fact that they managed to put an end to EpiVacKorona, which received a dubious reputation. Pessimists believe that it is too early to bury this suspension.
“We know for sure that Vector has already submitted to the Ministry of Health the final results of the third phase of EpiVacCorona tests,” Andrei Krinitsky, founder of the Grais group of civilian researchers, told Novaya Gazeta. But this information is not published. We know from behind-the-scenes conversations that Vector might want to publish their data, but they are allegedly being persuaded not to. But our group has enough volunteer testers in touch so that we can refute any false information. If the vaccine is ineffective, how can Vector recognize it?
Photo: Maksim Slutsky/TASS
“Bring it in line”
As Novaya Gazeta already wrote, the volunteers were the first to doubt the effectiveness of EpiVacCorona as a vaccine against covid, who initially believed in it so much that they went to participate in clinical trials of the drug. The results of their investigations were published by Novaya: the volunteers did not find protective antibodies in the body after vaccination. They conducted their experiments — fortunately, among them there were biologists, physicians, mathematicians, analysts and, most importantly, excellent organizers capable of doing such work — and compared the conclusions with the conclusions of famous Russian scientists. They also did not agree that each «intramuscular suspension» can be considered a vaccine.
Not finding the expected effectiveness of the vaccine, volunteers began to compare EpiVacCoron with saline.
The drug has been used for more than a year — and as practice accumulated, their point of view changed.
“Of those people who were vaccinated with EpiVacCorona, they believed that the vaccine protected them, and because of this began to behave less cautiously, a huge number of people became seriously ill, only we have information about dozens of deaths,” says Andrei Krinitsky. — After all, it was mainly people from the risk group who were vaccinated. I believe that many would have survived if they had been grafted, for example, by Sputnik. Moreover, it turns out that they would have even more chances not to get sick if they had not been vaccinated at all, but still followed all the precautions.
Throughout the year, research volunteers corresponded with the Ministry of Health, Rospotrebnadzor and other departments, seeking not so much a ban on the drug as open data on its effectiveness.
—We received only replies, all of them are published on our website,” says Andrei Krinitsky. They are completely formal. At the same time, we remained in touch with the employees of these departments, including the Ministry of Health, they were aware of our research.
As Novaya Gazeta found out, Roszdravnadzor tried to respond not only in correspondence with volunteers. In February 2021, an unscheduled inspection swooped down at the Vector SSC, and the auditors found violations during the “clinical trial of the drug “Vaccine based on peptide agents for the prevention of COVID-19 EpiVacCoron”. Vector was ordered to bring everything “in line with the rules of good clinical practice” and was given until June to do so. That's it.
“Evidently, even the minister himself could not have influenced the situation,” Andrei Krinitsky believes. “But this vaccine would have failed in the end anyway, even without our efforts, anyway, sooner or later people would begin to suspect that something was wrong with the vaccine. Because statistics have already accumulated from covidaria on those vaccinated with EpiVacCorona, and it is terrifying.
Clinical Psychology
Recall that in March 2020, at the very beginning of the epidemic in Russia, the government allocated 1.4 billion rubles to Rospotrebnadzor to create a vaccine against coronavirus infection, and all this money was sent to the Vektor SSC subordinate to Rospotrebnadzor. There, several divisions worked on candidate vaccines on different platforms, and biologists not associated with Vector called some of the developments very promising.
The whole amount went to one group, it was headed by the head of the department of zoonotic infections, Alexander Ryzhikov. He announced that he and his colleagues had created the world's first peptide vaccine, moreover, «the only effective one in the world.» At a certain stage, the authors included almost the entire academic council of the institute, its director Rinat Maksyutov, as well as the son of Alexander Ryzhikov, who had no direct relation to Vector, but managed a commercial firm called Epivak (Vector denied the connection between private company and vaccine names). In addition, the patent for the vaccine lists the head of Rospotrebnadzor Anna Popova as a co-author (Rospotrebnadzor denies a conflict of interest).
In Novosibirsk, several scientists, independently of each other and on condition of the strictest anonymity, told Novaya Gazeta that Popova probably knew about the real effectiveness of EpiVacCorona long before the drug was launched into mass production. In small Koltsovo near Novosibirsk, where Vector is located, almost passers-by gossiped about what was happening around the vaccine.
Some employees wanted to raise the issue of EpiVacCoron and the prestige of the institute at the academic council, but Rinat Maksyutov canceled the meetings, explaining this by a pandemic.
And the government allocated another 2 billion rubles to Vector for the production of EpiVacCorona.
— The technology of peptide vaccines could be breakthrough, if Vector had achieved success, they would have been the first in the world to whom it succeeded,” explains Andrei Krinitsky. — Basic scientific research is really expensive. And this is far from always successful, punishing scientists for the failure of research is unacceptable. But launching into production, and even more so into civilian circulation, a vaccine whose success has not been proven is a crime.
When the time came, as the rules dictate, to find a company for an independent audit of clinical trials of a vaccine, Vector hired a company for this with no experience in such work and with one person on the staff, a clinical psychologist by profession. During the first year of the pandemic, the official income of Vector CEO Rinat Maksyutov, according to the declaration on the website of Rospotrebnadzor, tripled.
—From acquaintances working in Vector, I know that they have banned any contacts with the press, they even have to coordinate their activity in social networks,” says Andrei Krinitsky. — People working in other laboratories, not at Mr. Ryzhikov's, simply say that they have stocked up on popcorn and are watching the development of the situation. As far as I know, Vector has a rather sophisticated remuneration system: the official salary is very small, and the rest comes from grants, bonuses and other things. Therefore, the team is quite dependent on the leadership. We know that there is outrage inside the Vector, but the mouths are shut up quite professionally.