Albert Bourla, the chief executive of the US pharma giant Pfizer, was forced to flee journalists after he came under a barrage of uncomfortable questions on the company's COVID-19 vaccine in the streets of the Swiss resort of Davos.
Albert Bourla, the chief executive officer (CEO) of American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer who is in Davos for the World Economic Forum (WEF), was confronted by two journalists on Wednesday (January 18) over the company's vaccine against Covid. The journalists, who work for Rebel News, posed several questions to Bourla about the vaccine and the Pfizer CEO ignored them.
Taking to Twitter, Rebel News shared a six-minute-long video of its journalists confronting Albert Bourla. Ezra Levant, one of the journalists said, "Mr Bourla, can I ask you – when did you know the vaccines did not stop transmission? How long did you know that before saying it publicly?"
WE CAUGHT HIM! Watch what happened when @ezralevant & @OzraeliAvi spotted Albert Bourla, the CEO of Pfizer, on the street in Davos today.
— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) January 18, 2023
We finally asked him all the questions the mainstream media refuses to ask.
Story: https://t.co/eIp37FWNtz
SUPPORT: https://t.co/aJiaQfYNuD pic.twitter.com/6jSVAzCB0d
The second journalist Avi Yemini, accused Bourla of making millions on the backs of people's entire livelihoods. "Is it time to apologise to the world, sir? To give refunds to the countries that borrowed their money into a vaccine that doesn’t work. An ineffective vaccine. Are you not ashamed of what you’ve done in the last couple of years?" Yemini asked only to get no response from Bourla.
The two journalists also questioned the Pfizer CEO over how much money he made from the vaccine and about his secret meeting in Davos.
This confrontation comes a day after Pfizer announced that it would expand the number of medicines and vaccines that it sells on a not-for-profit basis to the world's poorest countries. During the WEF meeting, Pfizer said it would begin offering at cost 45 low-income nations. The American pharmaceutical giant said this expansion would help address the "disease burden and unmet patient needs" of 1.2 billion people living in these 45 nations.
Suddenly a more aggressive interviewer appeared out of nowhere, firing more pointed questions at the pharmaceutical boss, which appears to startle the group he's with.
'Is it time to apologize to the world? Are you not ashamed of what you've done in the last couple of years? Are you proud of it?' asked the more ruthless interviewer, before going on to accuse him of 'criminal behavior.'
A video of Bourla being grilled about why Pfizer kept revising the effectiveness rate of its vaccine downward was shared on social media by India's minister of state for technology, Rajeev Chandrasekhar.
"Just to remind all Indians, that Pfizer tried to bully Govt of India into accepting conditions of indemnity," the minister said.
Bourla, who has chaired Pfizer since 2019, evaded questions of journalists about whether the company would assume liability for the side effects of its "ineffective vaccine" and give refunds to countries that bought it, to which he replied with "Thank you very much" and "Have a nice day."
Pfizer reportedly made tens of billions of dollars off COVID-19 vaccines alone in 2021 and was projected to bump up the gains in 2022.
Indian media reported that the company sought an indemnity bond from the Indian government at the start of the vaccination rollout in India, the world's largest vaccine manufacturer, which would have exempted Pfizer from legal claims in case the vaccine produced side effects.
Previously, Pfizer had offered 23 of its patented drugs to poor countries on a not-for-profit basis. Now, it would include off-patent medicines, bringing the total number of products on offer to around 500, according to a report by the news agency AFP. This move is part of an initiative known as "An Accord for a Healthier World" which was announced in Davos last year.
"The Accord portfolio offering now includes both patented and off-patent medicines and vaccines that treat or prevent many of the greatest infectious and non-communicable disease threats faced today in lower-income countries," Pfizer said on Tuesday.
'How many boosters would it take for you to be happy with your earnings?' he joked.
Albert Bourla is a Greek-American veterinarian and has been the CEO of Pfizer since 2019 having worked for the company since 1993. He received $21 million in compensation from Pfizer in 2020 and regularly features on CNBC and in The New York Times.
Late last year a video clip began to circulate on social media in which a Pfizer executive was said to have 'admitted' that the company did not test whether their mRNA vaccine reduced transmission before rolling it out.
A fact-check was carried out by the Associated Press, which established that the video was misleading and lacked context but aspects remained true.
'Pfizer did not know whether its COVID-19 vaccine prevented transmission of the virus before it entered the market in December 2020. But Pfizer never claimed to have studied the issue before the vaccine's market release,' it wrote.
In a write-up of his encounter with Bourla, Levant appeared to relish in it.
'It was the moment we were waiting for: one of the most hated men in the world going for a leisurely stroll because he assumed he was amongst friends,' he said.
'Well, he didn't count on Rebel News and our accountability style of citizen journalism.'
Pfizer was an early winner during the pandemic when it became the first company to get a COVID-19 vaccine approved for the US market. Subsequent vaccine mandates for healthcare workers and the military further drove up its sales. The company was projected in November to make more than $100 billion in total revenue last year with the vaccine and its antiviral Paxlovid - more than double the its yearly revenue in 2019 ($40.9 billion) and 2020 ($41.7 billion). In the wake of those surging revenues, Albert Bourla personally earned $50million in compensation across 2021 and 2022
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