Pfizer warns employees: 'Anti-science activists' might be lurking anywhere
Pfizer defended its disgraced executive who unwittingly made startling admissions recently about the company and its COVID-19 vaccine to an undercover journalist from Project Veritas. The guerrilla journalism group Monday published a leaked internal memo from Pfizer in which the pharma giant appears to refer to the group as “anti-science activists”.
The memo follows a sting operation by Project Veritas which targeted Pfizer’s Research and Development, Strategic Operations Director Jordon Trishton Walker. A video released last month showed Walker admitting on hidden camera that Pfizer is exploring ways to create new COVID-19 variants to ramp up vaccine sales.
"One of the things we're exploring is like, why don't we just mutate [the COVID virus] ourselves so we could create — preemptively develop new vaccines, right? So, we have to do that. If we're gonna do that though, there's a risk of like, as you could imagine — no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating f**king viruses," Walker said to the reporter.
Another video published last week showed Walker also admitting that Pfizer is looking to use mRNA vaccine technology for “gene editing” and expressing concern about the COVID vaccine’s impact on menstrual cycles.
“I hope we don’t discover something really bad down the line. I hope we don’t find out that somehow this mRNA lingers in the body,” he said, “because it has to be affecting something hormonal to impact menstrual cycles.”
In its internal letter to employees leaked Monday by Project Veritas, Pfizer referred to Walker in a way that suggests he is still employed by the corporation.
“We are aware of and managing a recent incident where one of our colleagues was baited into conversation in a social situation and recorded without their knowledge,” the document said.
“Fact-based information rooted in sound science is vitally important to preserving Pfizer’s scientific innovations, reputation, and trust with business partners, and ultimately enables us to deliver breakthroughs for patients,” continued the memo, which went on to slam the Project Veritas journalists as being against science. “Anti-science activists are becoming increasingly brazen in their drive to gain and manipulate information, fueling the spread of baseless claims and endangering public health.”
The letter also warned employees that “these activists” could be anywhere, and that anyone they meet might be a lurking Project Veritas journalist.
The tactics of these activists can be surprising and confrontational—including targeting specific individuals who are perceived to have confidential information about our science and in particular our COVID-19 vaccine. This targeting can happen online through social media and dating apps as well as in person through industry conferences or simple social situations, such as a casual conversation with a new acquaintance in a bar, on a date, or at a party.
Hours after releasing the first video, Project Veritas posted a second video showing the guerrilla journalism group’s founder James O’Keefe confronting Walker about his remarks. Walker assaulted O’Keefe and grabbed his iPad, after which he was tackled by what appeared to be O’Keefe’s security team.