It only needed to be dismissed as not effective during the period when the world governments were establishing a medical health emergency. If the vaccines had been made available and there was already a viable alternative treatment for Cov 19, then it would have been impossible to establish that the vaccines could be rolled out for emergency use. If a treatment exists then there is a strong argument that there is no emergency, right? Now that the emergency use case has been passed in many countries including the UK and US it is unlikely to be withdrawn.