Did Pharma Promote Vaccine Disinformation

The Chairman of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee Chairman today announced he sent letters to the Chief Executive Officers of Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck & Co., Inc. regarding vaccine information during the recent pandemic.

And reporting indicates that the pharmaceutical industry pressured social media platforms to delete posts related to producing low-cost generic vaccines.

This investigation may also examine grants, contracts, and other funding the companies received from the U.S. government.

These letters demand information on how and to what extent the U.S. Executive Branch coerced and colluded with pharmaceutical companies and other intermediaries to censor speech across digital networks.

According to documents obtained by the U.S. Committee, personnel from Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Merck were invited in December 2020 to meet with personnel from other pharmaceutical companies, Executive Branch agencies, and Stanford University to discuss "a coalition to respond to COVID-19 vaccine disinformation."

The entanglement of Executive Branch agencies, third-party organizations, and technology companies to moderate speech-related content online raises questions about how these actions affected American citizens' civil liberties.

The letter to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla is posted here, the Johnson & Johnson letter to CEO Joaquin Duato here, and the letter to Merck & Co., Inc. CEO Robert Davis here.

These letters indicated similar requests, such as the following:

"..... this letter serves as a formal request to preserve all existing and future records and materials relating to the topics addressed in this letter."

"You should construe this preservation notice as an instruction to take all reasonable steps to prevent the destruction or alteration, whether intentionally or negligently, of all documents, communications, and other information, including electronic information and metadata, that are or may be responsive to this congressional inquiry."

"This instruction includes all electronic messages sent using your official and personal accounts or devices, including records created using text messages, phone-based message applications, or encryption software."

"Please produce all documents and information as soon as possible but not later than July 31, 2023. In addition, please treat these discovery obligations as ongoing and applicable to any information generated after receipt of this letter."

This Press Release and Letters were issued on July 18, 2023, by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH).

According to a Harvard Medical School-led report published in the Annals of Internal Medicine on July 18, 2023, describes how the recent pandemic created an opportunity to demonstrate the role of media monitoring and counter-messaging efforts in responding to dangerous medical rumors, misinformation, and disinformation.

This report concluded there is widespread agreement that rumors, misinformation, and disinformation about health and science are not new and have been circulating for centuries. 

So why is our current situation in 2023 so alarming?

The problem may be the unprecedented speed and scale at which unverified, false, or misleading information can spread online.