The federal government’s failed collaboration with a vaccine manufacturing company in China early in the pandemic has led to a delay of nearly two years in efforts to create a made-in-Canada COVID-19 vaccine.
Government documents obtained by The Fifth Estate show that Canadian officials wasted months waiting for a proposed vaccine to arrive from China for further testing and spent millions upgrading a production facility that never made a single dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) signed an agreement with Tianjin-based CanSino Biologics in early May 2020 to “fast-track the availability of a COVID-19 vaccine in Canada for emergency pandemic use.”
The CanSino vaccine, which had been created by the scientific research arm of China’s military, was to be shipped to Canada for human trials that May. If successful, the vaccine was to be manufactured at a temporary facility in Montreal that the NRC had committed $44 million to upgrade.
WATCH: The Fifth Estate | The Vaccine: What went wrong? on CBC-TV and CBC Gem Thursday at 9 p.m.
The documents reveal that the NRC, the scientific research arm of the Canadian government, was gearing up for production of the vaccine — even before the contract was signed and human trials had started — estimating it could be manufacturing doses by summer 2020.
At first, the NRC would be producing doses for human trials in Canada, then later, according to the contract, “for front-line responders and Canadians as soon as they are available.”
The CanSino-Canada deal was originally hoped to quickly provide vaccines for emergency use by front-line responders. (Leah Hennel/Alberta Health Services)
“Once fully operational, in the event that CanSino proceeds, NRC will be able to produce 70,000 to 100,000 doses per month,” the NRC briefs said.
The NRC asked Dr. Scott Halperin, director of the Canadian Center of Vaccinology in Halifax, to design the clinical trials for CanSino in Canada.
“The NRC and CanSino had previous collaborations well before the pandemic,” Halperin said in an interview with The Fifth Estate. “That was leveraged into a working relationship to say: ‘Can that be expanded for the current crisis?’ “
Vaccine stuck in China
As the months progressed, the documents also show that the NRC was working to increase the number of doses the facility could produce for the public.
But ultimately, the CanSino vaccine would never get to Canada.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the deal to Canadians on May 16, 2020. But a federal government memo later that same month reveals the Canadian Embassy in Beijing was still working to get the vaccine cleared by China’s customs.
“CanSino vaccines are still with customs in China,” the memo said. “Embassy has a [meeting] tomorrow. Assuming they get through customs [tomorrow], they can be put on a flight on the 27th.”
But the vaccine candidate was not put on a plane on May 27.
That same day, Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou — a high-profile tech executive in China — lost an appeal to the B.C. Supreme Court arguing against her arrest in Canada. Meng had been detained in Vancouver in 2018 on U.S. bank fraud charges.
(Meng was returned to China last month after signing a deferred prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney General’s Office. Shortly after, two Canadians held in prisons in China were allowed to return to Canada.)
Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou waves as she steps out of an airplane after arriving at Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport in Shenzhen in southern China’s Guangdong province on Sept. 25, 2021. Meng signed a deferred prosecution agreement with U.S. prosecutors that allowed her to leave Canada for the first time in nearly three years. (Jin Liwang/Xinhua via The Associated Press)
“I was incredulous that the government had chosen to partner with not only CanSino, but with China, after all the things that had happened,” Conservative MP Michael Chong said.
Chong has served as the party’s foreign affairs critic and on the parliamentary committee on Canada-China relations.
“It was clear by May of 2020 that China was not a reliable partner,” he said.
Michael Chong, a former Conservative foreign affairs critic, has been outspoken regarding national security issues and China’s human rights record. (Joe Fiorino/CBC)
On June 19, 2020, only weeks after Meng lost her court appeal, China accused Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor of espionage. They had already been held in Chinese prisons without charges for more than 500 days.
A war of words ensued between the governments in China and Canada, with officials from each country criticizing the other.
WATCH | McGill professor says connection to China’s army risky:
Security professor doubts customs stopped the vaccine
16 hours ago
Ben Fung, a security researcher with McGill University, tells The Fifth Estate’s Bob McKeown that a partnership with a company closely tied to China’s military would be risky. 0:59
By June 26, NRC bureaucrats acknowledged in briefs that the “shipment of vaccine material has stalled.”
By early July, the CanSino candidate was still the only vaccine Health Canada had approved for human trials in Canada. NRC officials continued to hope it would arrive later that month.
“CanSino remains very committed to the Canadian clinical trials,” the brief said.
Into August, NRC documents reveal, officials continued working on manufacturing plans, despite the fact that the vaccine candidate had “not yet been approved by Chinese customs for shipment to Canada.”
Customs not the problem
Ben Fung, a security researcher at McGill University in Montreal and an outspoken China critic, said he doubts that customs was the issue, and argued that Canada should have known partnering with CanSino was risky because of the company’s connection to both China’s military and government.
“So when they say customs is stopping the vaccines, of course this is not the case,” Fung said. “The [Chinese Communist Party] is upper management.”
WATCH | The original plans for the CanSino-Canada vaccine:
The CanSino-Canada vaccine plan
16 hours ago
The Fifth Estate’s Bob McKeown looks at the plans for a CanSino-Canada vaccine partnership by hearing from CanSino’s Canadian scientific adviser, Dr. Luis Barreto, who is a longtime vaccine specialist, and Dr. Scott Halperin, who was hired to run clinical trials for the company. 2:09
At the Center for Vaccinology, Halperin suspected that the project had become wrapped up in the diplomatic tensions between Canada and China. When he saw the vaccine had been shipped to Pakistan and Russia without issue, he knew the vaccine was not coming to Canada.
“Then we knew it wasn’t just the right paperwork and bureaucracy,” Halperin said. “It became clear that that wasn’t the case, but that took another month to two months to finally decide that no, it must be politics. It can’t be anything else.”
The Globe and Mail first reported on Aug. 25, 2020, that the NRC had abandoned its collaboration with CanSino because China wouldn’t let the vaccine doses come to Canada.
WATCH | CanSino’s CEO on why the vaccine didn’t come to Canada:
CanSino CEO on why the vaccine didn’t come to Canada
16 hours ago
Dr. Xuefeng Yu, co-founder of CanSino, says he had hoped to get the vaccine into Canada, the country where his family lives. He tells The Fifth Estate’s Bob McKeown how that unfolded. 1:19
In an interview with The Fifth Estate, CanSino CEO Dr. Xuefeng Yu said he did not know why the vaccine wasn’t allowed to be sent to Canada.
“I don’t work for the government, either side. I really have no clue what’s going on behind the doors of the department of … each country.”
Yu said that by the time the shipment was delayed into August, there was no point proceeding with trials in Canada. By then, CanSino was already in Phase 3 global trials elsewhere.
Millions of doses promised
Trudeau and Industry Minister Navdeep Bains held a media conference at the NRC on Aug. 31, 2020, touting the Montreal lab that had been upgraded to produce the CanSino vaccine.
Even though the federal government no longer had a vaccine partner, the Prime Minister’s Office announced that the facility would “enable the preliminary production of 250,000 doses of vaccine per month starting in November 2020.”
However, that facility did not produce 250,000 doses of vaccine in November 2020, or any month since.
“One would hope that when the prime minister speaks, he knows what he’s talking about and it’s accurate,” NDP MP and health critic Don Davies said in an interview with The Fifth Estate.
“So he either was mistaken or he was misleading, and I think it’s incumbent on him to explain which of those it is. What we do know is that we didn’t produce 250,000 doses in Canada in November in Montreal.”
Don Davies was the NDP health critic when the CanSino vaccine deal was discussed at a parliamentary committee. (Ian Christie/CBC)
To this day, no vaccines have been produced at that NRC facility.
In August 2020, Trudeau also announced that a new NRC lab in Montreal would be producing two million doses a month by mid-2021.
That has also not happened. According to the NRC, vaccines will not be produced there until 2022, at the earliest.
Trudeau, right, alongside Minister for Economic Development Melanie Joly, left, and Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry Navdeep Bains arrive for a news conference and visit to the National Research Council of Canada Royalmount Human Health Therapeutics Research Centre on Aug. 31, 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)
The Prime Minister’s Office did not answer when asked to explain the discrepancy between the promised production numbers and what happened. The prime minister and his ministers also declined interview requests about Canada’s early vaccine production plans, including with the NRC and CanSino.
The NRC has said the U.S.-based vaccine developer Novavax will be its new partner for this facility, but Health Canada has not approved its vaccine yet.
The National Research Council of Canada is adding two manufacturing facilities for vaccines at its campus in Montreal. One will make vaccines for use in clinical trials and the other will produce vaccines for public use. (Vianney Leudiere/Radio-Canada)
The NRC declined interview requests with its officials but provided written responses to questions.
“It was deemed prudent to seize the opportunity to obtain access to CanSino’s vaccine candidate — one of the most advanced at the time,” the NRC said.
The NRC also acknowledged that the failure of the CanSino deal forced it to scrap its original clinical trial manufacturing plans.
“I think there’s no doubt it has set us back years,” Davies said. “When you’re in a global pandemic, that is deadly, that costs lives.”
CanSino seizes Fifth Estate interview
Yu is proud of CanSino’s COVID-19 vaccine that’s going into millions of arms around the world.
The company CEO sat down with The Fifth Estate for a wide-ranging interview, discussing his roots in Canada’s pharmaceutical industry, his family who still lives in Toronto and his research work with China’s military.
“I see them as collaborators, it’s just a research institute, right?” Yu said.
CanSino Biologics Inc. is headquartered in Tianjin, China, an industrial city southeast of Beijing. The company has a large manufacturing facility and offices at the site. (Tribal Productions Asia)
But when the cameras turned off, he was clearly not happy with how the interview unfolded.
As the CBC freelance camera crew packed up their gear in the CanSino Biologics offices in Tianjin, China, company officials seized the interview recording.
CanSino deleted half of the recording before giving it back 10 days later. Luckily, The Fifth Estate recorded the entire interview from Toronto.
China officials may have denied the CanSino vaccine candidate to Canada, but Canadian scientists and labs are still supporting CanSino’s COVID-19 vaccine, which is being used in at least nine countries.
A health-care worker injects a teacher with a dose of the CanSino COVID-19 vaccine in Mexico City. CanSino’s vaccine has been approved for emergency pandemic use in a handful of countries worldwide. Phase 3 trials are ongoing. (Marco Ugarte/The Associated Press)
The Center for Vaccinology in Halifax continues to work for CanSino, with Halperin running the company’s Phase 3 global trials on a $3.5-million contract.
“That vaccine will likely never come to Canada at this stage. It’s going to be used around the world in other places, but not in Canada,” Halperin said. “I look at this as a part of Canada’s contribution to the global battle against COVID-19.”
If you have tips on this or any other story, please contact The Fifth Estate team.
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
___
Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
