Big pharma: From playing doctor to playing God?
If the video on Pfizer's capture of regulatory agencies and plans for directed evolution reveals one thing, it's the media fact-checkers' ability to blur the boundary between truth and misinformation
If you are reading this blog, chances are that your inbox is already full with notifications of Substack posts about a viral video showing a Pfizer executive bragging with the big pharma corporation’s ability to capture regulatory agencies and its consideration of directing the evolution of the coronavirus in order to be able to produce more effective “vaccines”. In case you missed it, check out e.g. Dr. Jessica Rose’s “Project Veritas strike again!”, Dr. Byram Bridle’s “Breaking News—Pfizer Might Mutate SARS-COV-2 Behind Closed Doors To Make Their Shots Bigger Cash Cows”, or Dr. James Lyons-Weiler’s “Hidden Camera INFURIATING Confession: Pfizer Scientist Spills 100% of the Beans on Pfizer's ‘Cash Cow’ of COVID-19, Regulatory Capture, In-House Gain-of-Function“. Or check out Brian O’Shea’s backgrounder on the Pfizer executive in question.
I am not yet convinced that this story is true, or, if it is, that it has the weight that many COVID skeptics see in it. Indeed, it sounds like the people leading this big pharma corporation have completely lost their moral compass, as Dr. Robert Malone comments within the video, and are planning to play God. On the other hand, Pfizer could just say: Yes, we’ve been thinking about the possibility to actively mutate SARS-CoV-2 as a logical biotechnical advance for the greater good of humanity, but, of course, we would be fully transparent about the process, respect any socio-political or ethical concerns, and compliant with any restrictions if we were getting anywhere close to starting such experiments in practice.
Although I might be proven wrong in the next few days or weeks, I am afraid that this story may go the same way as some other recent revelations that were over-hyped or misunderstood by critics of the global pandemic response. But I do want to make sure to at least mention the Project Veritas video release and use it to bring up a related, longer-term concern that I have been meaning to write about again: the methods of the media fact checkers. I was pleased to see a post by Thorsteinn Siglaugsson taking up doubts about the authenticity of the video. He quickly concludes that the story is legit and important, based in part on the observation that there is only one published fact check to be found for the story, and that it fails to dispel the story’s validity.
In a comment, Siglaugsson outlines a three-step strategy that is typical of COVID-related media fact checks:
Create a “strawman”, i.e. pick a claim related to the story at hand but in which the story is exaggerated or only one aspect of the story is highlighted
Make ad-hominem accusations or remarks to denigrate the source of the strawman claim and/or the source of the underlying story
Refute the strawman claim instead of engaging with the underlying story
As Siglaugsson points out in his comment, Newsweek’s “Fact Check: Does Project Veritas Video Show Pfizer Is Mutating COVID?” is “not all bad”. It includes a detailed description and partial transcript of the video so that the reader can gain an understanding of the original story. The fact check zooms in the question as to whether secret, directed-evolution experiments have already begun at Pfizer, which is a valid question. Newsweek concludes with an “unverified” rating, rather than the typical “misleading” or “false” ratings, which comes across as reasonable with respect to the (strawman) claim and the pieced-together nature of the Project Veritas video.
The issue with this fact check is that Newsweek and other legacy media are not engaging with the two major concerns arising from the video: The broken moral compass of corporations and professionals, who would even contemplate doctoring with a respiratory virus’ natural evolution, and the mechanics of regulatory capture documented in the video interview. By publishing a strawman fact-check of the Project Veritas release instead of conducting an investigative report into Pfizer’s corporate social responsibility, the media are failing in their duty to the public, again.
UPDATE (Saturday, 28 January 2023): Two additional, highly informative blog posts related to this story landed in my inbox this morning. On one hand, Eugyppius writes "About that Project Veritas scoop" in an even more sober fashion than I did above, https://www.eugyppius.com/p/about-that-project-veritas-scoop. On the other hand, Jeff Childers is more enthusiastic about the impact of the story and, more importantly, he addresses Pfizer's response (content and timing) in a convincing manner in his latest Coffee & Covid newsletter, https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/triple-play-saturday-january-28-2023.