Pfizer Gave Millions to ‘Independent’ Groups to Push COVID Vaccine Mandates

pfizer grants covid vaccine mandate feature

Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer in 2021 made numerous grants to medical associations, consumer groups and civil rights organizations for the purpose of creating the appearance of widespread support for COVID-19 vaccine mandates, investigative journalist Lee Fang reported.

As the vaccine mandates rolled out in 2021, Pfizer stayed quiet on the question of mandates — but public health groups, patient advocacy groups, doctors’ associations, community groups and others, along with the Biden administration, actively advocated for vaccine mandates as a key measure to protect public health.

New disclosures from Pfizer, posted by Fang on his Substack, show that many of these same groups were taking money from Pfizer while they promoted the idea that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines were “safe and effective,” despite a lack of scientific data to back those claims.

Prominent groups on the extensive list of those who took Pfizer funding while pushing the mandates included the Chicago Urban League, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), the National Consumers League, The Immunization Partnership, the American Pharmacists Association, the American College of Preventive Medicine, the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, the American Society for Clinical Pathology and the American College of Emergency Physicians.

Many groups did not disclose their ties to Pfizer.

“[These groups] set the nature of the debate,” Fang told comedian and political commentator Russell Brand on a recent episode of “Stay Free.” “They appear in the news media, they create events and they create a discourse that looks authentic, that looks organic, but it benefits the bottom line of their benefactors, of companies like Pfizer.”

Fang said many of these organizations, particularly civil rights organizations like the Chicago Urban League or the National Consumers League — which actually has a Pfizer lobbyist on its board — have powerful influence precisely because of their independent status.

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After the COVID-19 vaccines became widely available in early 2021, vaccine mandates followed in different forms across the country.

At the federal level, the U.S. Department of Defense mandated vaccines for military personnel, and the Biden administration mandated vaccines for federal contractors and for all employers with 100 employees or more — the latter was struck down in federal court.

Universities mandated vaccination for students and staff, and many public and private employers across the country mandated vaccination for their employees.

Several school districts across the country planned to mandate vaccination for children to attend school, but most of those plans have since been rolled back.

Those who instituted mandates justified them by asserting that mass vaccination — and only mass vaccination — would “stop the spread” of COVID-19.

But it has since been revealed that in March 2021, when Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky publicly and unequivocally stated on MSNBC that vaccinated people would not get sick, there was no evidence to support her statement.

In fact, the CDC had to walk back the statement a few days later.

Biden also falsely claimed that the vaccinated would not get infected — in July 2021, just before COVID-19 vaccine mandates went into effect.

The vaccine makers have since acknowledged they never tested whether the vaccines would stop transmission, and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) reported that vaccinated people in both Pfizer and Moderna’s clinical trials contracted the virus.

Big Pharma’s big reach

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As for Pfizer, Fang said, third-party funding is just one of the many strategies the drugmaker deployed to drive COVID-19 policymaking.

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Big Pharma — along with the Biden administration and its intermediaries — also lobbied to suppress those who questioned the vaccine program.

Pfizer BioNTech and Moderna pressured Twitter and other social media platforms to set moderation rules that would flag purported COVID-19-related “misinformation,” as part of the effort to drive the national conversation about the COVID-19 vaccines, Fang reported as part of the “Twitter files.”

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American Academy of Pediatrics received multiple grants from Pfizer in 2021

The AAP also appeared on Fang’s list of notable organizations that received direct Pfizer funding.

According to Fang:

“The American Academy of Pediatrics was one of the most visible organizations working to build public support for vaccine mandates. The organization received multiple, specialized grants from Pfizer in 2021.

“Pfizer also provided grants to individual state chapters of the AAP earmarked for lobbying on vaccine policy. The Ohio AAP chapter, for instance, lobbied the Ohio legislature against bills to curb coercive COVID-19 vaccine policies, while receiving an ‘immunization legislation’ advocacy grant from Pfizer.”

Beyond its COVID-19 vaccine mandate work, the organization also was a public advocate for COVID-19 vaccines for children. Its then-president, UCLA professor Moira Szilagyi, M.D., Ph.D., publicly advocated, on media outlets such as CNN, for vaccinating children.

The organization, “dedicated to the health of all children,” previously issued policy guidance to its members stating that it is an “acceptable option to pediatric care clinicians to dismiss families who refuse vaccines.”

And in June 2022, the AAP issued a press release applauding the CDC’s recommendation of “safe, effective COVID-19 vaccines” for babies as young as 6 months old, despite concerns raised — by the FDA vaccine advisory commission, among many others — regarding a lack of clinical data for the vaccines in children.

In addition to the Pfizer funding, the AAP receives much of its funding directly from the CDC, raising questions about the organization’s ability to act independently, particularly with respect to vaccine recommendations, BMJ editor Peter Doshi wrote in 2017.