An alarming video provides supposed proof that Pfizer’s leaders are plotting a massive reduction in the world’s population — except that it doesn’t. The video, viewed tens of thousands of times, is nothing more than a deceptive edit of Pfizer’s announcement of a program that aims to help poor people afford medications.
A headline on British-based video hosting service BitChute claims otherwise: “Exposed! Pfizer CEO says it’s their dream to reduce the population by 50 percent in 2023.”
The video shows a portion of a May 25 conversation between Albert Bourla, the pharmaceutical giant’s CEO, and Klaus Schwab, executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, at the organization’s annual meeting in Davos.
But the video clip leaves out the full context of the discussion, which was that Pfizer had just launched a new accord that would provide its current and future patent-protected medicines and vaccines at cost to the world’s 45 poorest countries, which is about 1.2 billion people, Bourla said. The video also edits out some of Bourla’s words to make it sound like he said something he did not.
Here’s what the edited video shows Bourla saying:
“I think that it’s really the fulfillment of a dream that we’ve had, together with my leadership team when we started in 19 — the first week we met, in January of 19 in California — and set up the goals for the next five years. And one of them was, by 2023, we will reduce the number of people in the world by 50%. I think today, this dream is becoming reality.”
And here’s what Bourla actually said, with the edited-out words in bold:
“I think that it’s really the fulfillment of a dream that we’ve had, together with my leadership team when we started in 19 — the first week we met, in January of 19 in California — and set up the goals for the next five years, and one of them was, by 2023, we will reduce the number of people in the world that cannot afford our medicines by 50%. I think today, this dream is becoming reality.”
The video below shows the full context of the discussion, beginning at the 1:40 minute mark:
The fake video or reactions to it have been shared on social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and Gab.
BitChute, whose founder has described the service as “politically neutral” and “pro-free expression,” has been described as a far-right alternative to YouTube by the group Hope Not Hate and a “hotbed of hate” by the Anti-Defamation League. It was banned by PayPal from using its payment-processing service in 2019, the Associated Press reported.
Our ruling
A video claims that Pfizer’s CEO said the company’s goal was to cut the world population by 50% by 2023.
But the video was deceptively edited, taking out words to make Bourla appear to say something he did not, and leaving out the context that he was announcing a company program to help people in poor countries get access to its medicines and vaccines.
Because the video is not accurate and makes a ridiculous claim, we rate this Pants on Fire!
This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. It is republished here with permission. See the sources for this fact check here and more of their fact checks here.
