Referring to COVID-19 vaccines by their brand names, an article headline misleads about their availability.
“Few, If Any, Doses of Spikevax or Comirnaty Available in United States, Despite FDA Approvals,” reads the headline on a Feb. 2 article in The Epoch Times.
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The article says, “U.S. drug regulators have now approved the COVID-19 vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, but the approved versions of the vaccines don’t appear to be available yet in the United States.”
Spikevax and Comirnaty are brand names for the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, respectively. The claim falsely implies that those vaccines, which have received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, are different from the non-branded vaccines that have been in use since December 2020 under the Emergency Use Authorization.
The drug formulation is the same for the branded and non-branded vaccines, and the two versions can be used interchangeably, according to the FDA and the drug companies.
The non-branded vaccines are widely available in the U.S., and Comirnaty also is available in the U.S., according to a Pfizer spokesperson. Moderna did not respond to a request for comment.
Pfizer received FDA approval for its vaccine in August 2021, and Moderna received approval in January. After vaccines receive FDA approval, companies are allowed to market them under brand names, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman told USA Today.
Our ruling
An article headline says, “Few, If Any, Doses of Spikevax or Comirnaty Available in United States, Despite FDA Approvals.”
The claim falsely implies that Spikevax and Comirnaty are different from the non-branded COVID-19 vaccines that have been in use since December 2020. But the branded vaccines have the same formulation as the non-branded ones, which are widely available in the U.S.
Comirnaty also is available in the U.S.
We rate this claim False.
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. It is republished here with permission. See the sources for this fact check here and more of their fact checks here.
