In response to the stunning Project Veritas video, Pfizer officials admitted its scientists “engineered” mutated covid viruses in experiments to ensure its pharmaceutical products remained effective against new variants.
In a press release, the company refuted claims made in the video by Jordon Trishton Walker, “director of research and development for strategic operations and mRNA scientific planning.” The Pfizer director swore the company explored “directed evolution”:
“Allegations have recently been made related to gain of function and directed evolution research at Pfizer and the company would like to set the record straight.”In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research. Working with collaborators, we have conducted research where the original SARS-CoV-2 virus has been used to express the spike protein from new variants of concern.”This work is undertaken once a new variant of concern has been identified by public health authorities. This research provides a way for us to rapidly assess the ability of an existing vaccine to induce antibodies that neutralize a newly identified variant of concern….”In a limited number of cases when a full virus does not contain any known gain of function mutations, such virus may be engineered to enable the assessment of antiviral activity in cells. In addition, in vitro resistance selection experiments are undertaken in cells incubated with SARS-CoV-2 and nirmatrelvir in our secure Biosafety level 3 (BSL3) laboratory to assess whether the main protease can mutate to yield resistant strains of the virus.
Dr. Simon Clarke, a microbiologist at the University of Reading, offered this background on Pfizer’s approach.
‘These are not experiments which might risk the generation of a new variant that transmits more readily between people.’What Pfizer are doing is to look at how Covid becomes resistant to nirmatrelvir, a component of their PAXLOVID antiviral medicine.’They are looking to see what mutations to the molecule that nirmatrelvir’s targets can make it resistant to the drug.’This is important because scientists don’t fully understand how viruses might become resistant to nirmatrelvir.’These sorts of experiments are routine in the development of new anti-infective drugs and are required by regulators around the world.’Without this level of understanding, we could end up relying too heavily on drugs that rapidly become useless.’
However, the press release left much to be desired. It was filled with highly-technical jargon and seemed to conflate computer simulations with the type of viral work requiring the highly specialized containment area associated with a Biosafety Level 3 facility (areas constructed specifically to study infectious agents or toxins that may be transmitted through the air and cause potentially lethal infections).
The company is going to have to do better to answer the questions posed by U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL), who sent a letter to Albert Bourla, the President and CEO of Pfizer, following the release of the video in which one of its directors casually discusses the company’s manipulation of the covid virus for profit.
“Whether it’s gain of function research, or selected structure mutations through directed evolution, as Mr. Walker claimed would occur, any effort to make a virus more transmittable and deadlier is careless and dangerous.Further, Mr. Walker stated that Pfizer is willing to engage in this dangerous research because COVID and its variants are ‘a cash cow’ for the company and regulators will go easy on their efforts because a significant percentage of government officials aim to work for Pfizer and other biopharmaceutical companies and do not want to compromise their future job prospects.
That may be the least of Pfizer’s worries. Its stocks plummeted by 14.5% in January.
Last year, the drugmaker’s shares sank by 10.4%, despite the company’s stellar earnings growth over the course of the year. Unfortunately, Pfizer’s stock hasn’t been able to shake off this downward momentum with the change of the calendar year. The pharma titan’s shares, in fact, have dropped by another 14.5% during the first four weeks of 2023.
That cash cow’s name may have been Karma.
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