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An old video interview of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla with CNBC's Squawk Box has been circulating on social media to claim that he has not taken the COVID-19 vaccine yet.
The clip attempts to further the anti-vaccination narrative by trying to show that even the manufacturers of the vaccine do not trust it themselves.
However, we found that the video interview is from December 2020. Bourla is now fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and took the second dose of the vaccine on 10 March as per his social media posts.
CLAIM
The caption accompanying the viral video said, "Pfizer CEO has not yet had the vaccine."
In the video, Bourla can be heard saying, "I am 59-years-old and I am in good health. I’m not working in the frontline. So my type is not recommended to get vaccination now [sic]."
The last line gets repeated multiple times in the edited version of the video, which was found on video-hosting platforms Bitchute and Newtube.
The clip was shared by several Facebook users, archives of which can be found here and here.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Photo: Facebook/Screenshot)
The video was also shared on Twitter and Instagram and we also found link to the video being shared on anti-vaccination groups on Telegram and WhatsApp.
We also found another screenshot shared with the same claim. The screenshot was that of a tweet by American far-right TV News Channel Newsmax's journalist Emerald Robinson, who in early August had said that the Pfizer CEO was "not vaccinated".
WHAT WE FOUND OUT
Using InVID WeVerify Google Chrome extension, we extracted keyframes from the viral video and conducted a reverse image search on some of them. We found a link to the original version of the interview on CNBC, posted on 14 December 2020.
The viral video was clipped from this longer interview in which Bourla talks about building confidence in the vaccine.
The interview was conducted when the US was beginning its vaccination drive and since limited vaccines were available, it was recommended that healthcare workers and other vulnerable groups should receive shots first.
In the interview, Bourla said that he and other executives of the comany would take the vaccine when it was their turn to take it and would not cut the line.
We conducted a keyword search for Pfizer CEO's vaccination status and found a news report taking about him taking the vaccie. We then checked his Twitter profile and found a tweet from 11 March, in which he said that he was getting the second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.
We also checked the Robinson's tweet to find the truth behind Bourla's trip to Israel. We found that Robinson has posted a comment on her tweet stating that Bourla was indeed vaccinated. However, her initial tweet, which is still up, was shared by people and received massive engagement.
An archive of the post can be found here.
(Photo: Twitter/Screenshot)
The article Robin shared was an old report from The Jerusalem Post that said that Bourla had to cancel a trip to Israel because he was not fully vaccinated.
Therefore, the claimsthat the CEO of Pfizer has not taken the vaccine are false. Bourla was fully vaccinated in March.
(This story has been published as a part of The Quint’s COVID-19 fact-check project targeting rural women.)
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