Zainab Abdurrahman

Dr. Zainab Abdurrahman is a member of the Drugs & Biologics Clinical Practice Guidelines Working Group of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.¹⁾

Abdurrahman holds simultaneous positions across private practice locations, academic employment, government advisory boards, vaccine task forces, non-profit organizations, medical associations, and emergency care facilities, creating a tangled web of Conflicts of Interest (COIs). Startlingly, she also has strong ties to the pharmaceutical industry that are not fully disclosed.²⁾

Abdurrahman practices medicine at Albany Medical Clinic, which on December 19, 2021 instructed patients to “get boosted” with an additional COVID-19 shot when eligible due to the Omicron variant.³⁾ Albany Medical Clinic advocates on behalf of COVID-19 vaccine policies and products, offering the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna products to their patients.⁴⁾

Abdurrahman is a member of the Black Health & Vaccine Initiative in association with BPAO (Black Physicians of Ontario).⁵⁾ She was a collaborator with BPAO in drafting the position statement on Black Health & the COVID 19 vaccines.⁶⁾ The BPAO received a $1,000,000.00 donation from Scotiabank, MD Financial Management and the Canadian Medical Association in February 2021.⁷⁾

Abdurrahman is a member of the Black Scientists’ Task Force on Vaccine Equity, which was created in December 2020 “to share information about COVID-19 to the Black Canadian community and address their concerns about COVID-19 related issues.”^{8) 9)} It was created by the City of Toronto in partnership with the TAIBU Community Health Centre to increase vaccine uptake/combat “vaccine hesitancy” among black people of African and Caribbean origins.

Its membership includes mostly staff of the University of Toronto and its affiliated hospitals, professional lobbyists, and experienced developers of pharmaceutical products and vaccines. They also have connections to the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), McMaster University and Children’s Hospital, Sanofi, Fresenius Kabi, Teva Pharmaceuticals, National Resilience Inc., Patheon, Ceva, Labstat, Medicago, SiO2 Materials Science, Therapure BioPharma Inc., Biovectra, Apotex, EmpowerPharm, Alphora, Kisoji Biotechnology, JayChem, OctaPharma, NucroTechnics, NoNO Inc., Chemtura, AIMCo, Grantek, Purolator, Health Canada, Ontario Genomics, and the Ontario Ministry of Transportation, among others.^{10) 11)}

Abdurrahman is Fellows in Training co-Supervisor for the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology (CSACI), from whom she receives funding for speakers bureau/honoraria and/or work on advisory boards.¹²⁾

Zainab has contributed to articles published by Food Allergy Canada^{13) 14) 15)}

Food Allergy Canada received $50,000.00 CAD from the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERCC) for a Toronto, Ontario-based proposal titled “Encouraging vaccine confidence in Canadians at risk of anaphylaxis”.¹⁶⁾

Their corporate partners are Bausch Health, Kaléo, Nestlé, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Scotiabank, SickKids Foundation, and TD Securities.^{17) 18)}

Abdurrahman is an Adjunct Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Pediatrics at McMaster University, where she completed her Pediatrics training as well as her subspecialty training in Clinical Immunology and Allergy.¹⁹⁾ Her academic interests include vaccine allergy, asthma, anaphylaxis, and food allergy, particularly the patient and caregiver experience. She also has a strong interest in medical education and is involved with the training of residents.

Abdurrahman is employed at McMaster Children’s Hospital as the allergy lead in the Special Immunization Clinic focusing on vaccine allergy.²⁰⁾

Abdurrahman receives funding from through fees paid for speakers bureau/honoraria, and/or for work on advisory boards from the Ontario College of Family Physicians (OCFP). One such speaking engagement was “Update on COVID-19 vaccines - Part 2”, the fourteenth instalment of the “Changing the way we work” series delivered alongside the University of Toronto.²¹⁾

Abdurrahman is a member of the Drugs & Biologics Clinical Practice Guidelines Working Group of the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.²²⁾

Despite claims of independence, Abdurrahman holds simultaneous positions across private practice locations, academic employment, government advisory boards, vaccine task forces, non-profit organizations, medical associations, and emergency care facilities, creating a tangled web of Conflicts of Interest (COIs). Startlingly, she also has strong ties to the pharmaceutical industry that are not fully disclosed. This means that Abdurrahman can not contribute to an independent discussion on public health policy without risk of influence from her conflicting interests, which are primarily relationships with pharmaceutical companies.

Abdurrahman provided identical disclosure forms to the OST on February 8, May 14, and August 30, 2021.

Abdurrahman is employed by OntarioMD as a Physician Peer Leader, where she also sits on the Board of Directors.²³⁾ OntarioMD is a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Ontario Medical Association, funded by the Province of Ontario.²⁴⁾ This is not fully disclosed on her OST disclosure forms, and is omitted from her OST bio.

Abdurrahman is the Chair for the Section of Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Ontario Medical Association as well as a member of the OMA Civility, Diversity, and Inclusion committee. She was elected to the board in May 2021.^{25) 26)}

Abdurrahman conducted “contract work for the Public Health Agency of Canada” in 2005.²⁷⁾

Abdurrahman practices medicine at Q & A Allergy in Mississauga.²⁸⁾

Abdurrahman practices medicine at Scarborough Health Centre.

Abdurrahman has hospital privileges at St Joseph's Healthcare System.²⁹⁾

Abdurrahman is a 2007 graduate of the University of Toronto Medical School.

Abdurrahman receives funding from through fees paid for speakers bureau/honoraria, and for work on advisory boards from the following pharmaceutical companies:

• ALK (allergy pharmaceuticals)
• Bausch Health (pharmaceutical company testing virazole for COVID-19 treatment)³⁰⁾
• Medexus Pharmaceuticals Inc. (formerly Pediapharm - rare disease pharmaceutical company)³¹⁾
• Merck
• Miravo Healthcare (formerly Aralez)
• Novartis
• Pfizer (this was not reported in her OST disclosures or biography).
• Sanofi-Genzyme Covis (specialty care global business unit of Sanofi, focused on rare diseases, rare blood disorders, neurology, immunology, and oncology)³²⁾
• Stallergenes-Greer (global biopharmaceutical company headquartered in London, specializing in the diagnosis and treatment of respiratory allergies through immunotherapy)³³⁾

She also holds stock and/or stock options in Pediapharm (presumably under the new name Medexus Pharmaceuticals Inc.), and other unnamed “health care based ETFs”, noting she therefore “may have holdings in pharmaceutical companies.”

Abdurrahman has appeared in many news segments on CBC News discussing COVID-19 or related pharmaceutical companies:

• In a November 2019 segment, she advocated for Benadryl (a Johnson & Johnson product).³⁴⁾
• In December 2020, she downplayed concerns about allergic reactions to ingredients in the vaccine products including polyethylene glycol (PEG).³⁵⁾
• Also in December 2020, she reiterated that severe adverse reactions such as anaphylaxis are not common and that the focus should be on the “thousands who are being inoculated and tolerating it well.”³⁶⁾
• In January 2021, she commented “insect venom that could trigger a reaction in people in this situation is not a component in the vaccine profiles” in response to a situation where a woman didn’t want to take the COVID-19 shot because she had previously suffered an allergic reaction to the flu shot and had a honey bee allergy.³⁷⁾
• In November 2021, she appeared alongside Supriya Sharma, Heath Canada's chief medical adviser, to discuss COVID-19 injections for children.^{38) 39)}

Abdurrahman's vaccine-related publications include:

• Vaccine allergy⁴⁰⁾

She reported “receiving personal fees from Pfizer, outside the submitted work”. This was not reported in her OST disclosures or biography.

• Experiencing a first food allergic reaction: a survey of parent and caregiver perspectives⁴¹⁾

Funded by an educational grant from McMaster University.