By September 2020, Yeadon’s statements were attracting attention beyond Twitter. At the time, a movement had emerged in Britain against lockdowns and other restrictions meant to curb the disease. He co-authored a lengthy article on a website called Lockdown Sceptics. It declared that the “pandemic as an event in the UK is essentially complete.” And, “There is no biological principle that leads us to expect a second wave.”Britain soon entered a much more deadly second wave.
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According to Yeadon’s LinkedIn profile, he joined Pfizer in 1995; the company had a large operation then in Sandwich in southern England. He rose to become a vice president and head of allergy and respiratory research.
Many former colleagues say they are baffled by his transformation.
Mark Treherne, chairman of Talisman Therapeutics in Cambridge, England, said he overlapped with Yeadon at Pfizer for about two years and sometimes had coffee with him. “He always seemed knowledgeable, intelligible, a good scientist. We were both trained as pharmacologists … so we had something in common.”
“I obviously disagree with Mike and his recent views,” he said. Treherne’s company is researching brain inflammation, which he said could be triggered by coronaviruses. “This does not sound like the guy I knew 20 years ago.”
Moschos, the ex-colleague who took issue with one of Yeadon’s tweets, said he considered him a mentor when they worked together at the drugmaker from 2008 to 2011. More recently, Moschos has been researching whether it’s possible to test for COVID-19 with breath samples. He said Yeadon’s views are “a huge disappointment.” He recounted hearing Yeadon in a radio interview last year.
“There was a tone in his voice that was nothing like I ever remembered of Mike,” Moschos said. “It was very angry, very bitter.”
John LaMattina, a former president of Pfizer Global Research and Development, also knew Yeadon. “His group was very successful and discovered a number of compounds that entered early clinical development,” LaMattina told Reuters in an email. He said
Yeadon and his team were let go by Pfizer, however, when the company made the strategic decision to exit the therapeutic area they were researching.
LaMattina said he had lost touch with Yeadon in recent years. Shown links to Yeadon’s video declaring the pandemic over and a copy of his petition to halt COVID-19 clinical trials, LaMattina replied: “This is all news to me and a bit of a shock. This seems out of character for the person I knew.”
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/health-coronavirus-vaccines-skeptic/