Serving as Biden’s top science adviser, Eric Lander, the head of the Office of Science and Technology Policy, publicly promoted Covid-19 vaccination efforts while having a significant financial investment in one of the vaccine makers, according to financial disclosures.
Under the White House’s ethics agreement Lander signed, he had 90 days to divest his stocks after he was confirmed by the Senate on May 28. While Lander shed the bulk of that stock in June — including shares of BioNTech SE, the German biotechnology company and Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine partner — he waited until Aug. 5 to sell the remaining $500,000 to $1 million worth of stock he held in that company. When Lander ultimately sold the stock 69 days after his confirmation, it was the company’s second-highest stock price ever at $404.92 a share, having shot up more than $50 a share from two days prior.
As a member of the president’s Cabinet, part of Lander’s job was to promote the administration’s vaccination efforts in an effort to fight against the Covid pandemic. And in the weeks before that Aug. 5 transaction, he did just that in addition to meeting with Biden about his multibillion-dollar plan to prepare for the next pandemic.
www.politico.com/news/2022/02/09/lander-vaccine-stock-ethics-00007100