On December 11, Rex Chapman (Former NBA player) tweeted a video of Prime Minister Trudeau announcing that Canada will provide the new COVID-19 vaccine to every Canadian who wants it for free. The American Senator Ted Cruz responded to Rex Chapman by tweeting “That’s great. Just out of curiosity, which country was it that developed the vaccine? Wonder why.” His tweet implying that the Americans were the ones that developed the Pfizer vaccine. However, March for Science responded to Cruz’s tweet by answering Cruz’s rhetorical question about which country developed the Pfizer vaccine: “The Pfizer/BioNtech vaccine was first developed in Germany by a pair of immigrant scientists from Turkey.”

Ted Cruz may have claimed or believed that the new Covid-19 vaccine was developed in his home country, United States, but the vaccine would not have been developed if it were not for the work of Bio-N-Tech. Bio-N-Tech is a Germany based company in the city of Mainz run by two immigrant scientists from Turkey. The husband is the Ceo of the company and the wife is the co-founder and both are head scientists who did the research for the company. Their names are Ugur Sahin, 55, and Ozlem Tureci, 53.

The Bio-N-Tech company led by Ozlem Tureci has been working on the vaccine since January 2020. BioNTech then later partnered with Pfizer, the biggest pharmaceutical company in America to develop and distribute potential COVID-19 vaccine.

Dr. Ozlem Tureci’s main goal was to find a potential cure for cancer, but she had to pause her research, ever since the virus continued to spread throughout China.

Ted Cruz claimed that the new Covid-19 vaccine was developed in America, but in reality, America only contributed to the making of the new vaccine; if it was not for BioNTech and Dr. Ugur Sahin and Dr. Ozlem Tureci, the vaccine would not have been developed. Even if Ted Cruz was right about America being the one that developed the vaccine, it is not the time to brag about the vaccine because millions of people have been affected and have died of this disease. The most important thing right now is that there is a vaccine ready to go and stop the virus, and it was an international effort. So stop bragging America!!!

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