A heavily edited viral video produced by a right-wing activist group that is notorious for releasing misleadingly edited secret recordings claims to show a top Pfizer executive saying that the company had plans to mutate the COVID-19 virus to test vaccines on more potent variants. The video has been shared and viewed millions of times across multiple social media platforms.
The widespread circulation of the deceptive video increases its risk. Consider countering the misinformation by emphasizing the noted unreliability of the video’s source and the numerous reasons to doubt the legitimacy of the claims in the video. First, there is no evidence yet that the man in the video works for Pfizer. Second, despite the video’s inflammatory title, the man never actually said that Pfizer is creating COVID-19 mutants. Based on the heavily edited footage, he seems to be speculating about a hypothetical way to test a vaccine that is completely at odds with the way that Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies actually test vaccines.
