(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Pfizer board member and former FDA head Scott Gottlieb pressured Twitter in August 2021 to censor a scientifically accurate tweet about the COVID-19 vaccine being unnecessary for people with prior infections, according to the latest installation of the Twitter Files — a trove of internal communications and other records showing the inner workings of the social media company.
The tweet Gottlieb objected to was made by Dr. Brett Giroir, another former FDA head.
“It’s now clear #COVID19 natural immunity is superior to #vaccine immunity, by A LOT. There’s no science justification for #vax proof if a person had prior infection,” Giroir wrote on Aug. 27, adding, “If no previous infection? Get vaccinated!”
Despite Giroir advocating for people with no prior infections to be vaccinated, Gottlieb wrote to Twitter to complain. Gottlieb told Todd O’Boyle — a top lobbyist in Twitter’s Washington office who was also Twitter’s point of contact with the White House — that the post was “corrosive” and could “end up going viral and driving news coverage.”
Journalist Alex Berenson, who broke this latest Twitter Files revelation, said Twitter acted in response to Gottlieb’s complaint.
“Yet Twitter wound up flagging Giroir’s tweet anyway, putting a misleading tag on it and preventing almost anyone from seeing it,” Berenson wrote on his Substack. “It remains tagged even though several large studies have confirmed the truth of Giroir’s words.”
Berenson posted a screenshot of Gottlieb’s complaint, but did not post other email records about the incident.
According to Berenson, Gottlieb again complained on Sept. 3, 2021, about a tweet from Justin Hart — a lockdown and COVID vaccine skeptic.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones but a viral pathogen with a child mortality rate of <>0% has cost our children nearly three years of schooling,” Hart had written.
This time, though, Gottlieb’s complaint was so far afield that Twitter refused to act, Berenson reported.
Berenson noted that Gottlieb is not just a Pfizer board member; he’s one of the seven members of the board’s executive committee and the head of its regulatory and compliance committee.
Pfizer depended on mRNA jabs for almost half its $81 billion in sales in 2021, and paid Gottlieb $365,000 for his work that year, Berenson added.
Ken Silva is a staff writer at Headline USA. Follow him at twitter.com/jd_cashless.
