Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer needed “an army of 1,800” new full-time employees in 2021 to handle the deluge of adverse-event reports that followed public rollout of its Covid-19 vaccine. This, according to an analysis by Brian Hooker, chief scientific officer of Children’s Health Defense, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) disclosed information April 1 per an expedited Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.

FDA’s newly released documents include a report titled “Cumulative analysis of post-authorization adverse event reports … received through 28-Feb-2021.” It reads in part:

Pfizer has also taken a multiple actions to help alleviate the large increase of adverse event reports. This includes significant technology enhancements, and process and workflow solutions, as well as increasing the number of data entry and case processing colleagues. To date, Pfizer has onboarded approximately 600 additional fulltime employees (FTEs). More are joining each month with an expected total of more than 1,800 additional resources by the end of June 2021.