After Project Veritas released the results of its investigation into Jordon Trishton, Pfizer’s Director of Research, it took Pfizer many hours to respond. Project Veritas filmed Walker and revealed to Grindr that Pfizer had been developing new COVID-19 strains to be ready for rollout once they are available.

Pfizer’s PR team must have been trying to come up with a plan in the interim. This is a difficult task considering that Walker clearly discusses his work activities. This is what they came up with, via Pfizer.

“Allegations have recently been made related to the gain of function and directed evolution research at Pfizer and the company would like to set the record straight.”

Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is under development. Pfizer has not done any gain of function or directed evolutionary research. We have collaborated with collaborators to conduct research using the original SARS virus CoV-2 virus to generate spike proteins from new variants. Once a new variant of concern is identified by public health officials, this work will be done. This research allows us to quickly assess whether an existing vaccine can induce antibodies that neutralize a new variant of concern. This data is then made available to peer-reviewed scientific journals. We use it as part of our process to determine if a vaccine update should be done.

According to the press release, “The original SARS-CoV-2 virus was used to express spike protein from new varieties of concern.”

It sounds a lot like gain-of-function, which is when you add new spike proteins to the virus to see if they make it more “potent”. (Potent being an abbreviation of “deadlier or more infectious).

Pfizer didn’t address the source of their PR disaster and instead referred to “allegations”, which were made by unnamed sources. This is probable for two reasons. First, Project Veritas has been blacklisted by polite media, so mentioning their name would give them undue credit. Second, if Pfizer directed its audience to read the report or watch the transcript, they will conclude that the press release is at best an obfuscation about Project Veritas’ key findings.

The passive voice is used with care: “has been used” rather than “we used.” This is a classic strategy of the guilty to reduce their own guilt in a crime. It allows them to frame events as just happening in the ether and not as a result of any human intervention. Police reports, for example, must use the active voice to identify perpetrators.