by Sharon Rondeau
(Jan. 28, 2023) — In a statement issued Friday night, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer denied conducting “gain of function” or “directed evolution” experimentation in connection with its COVID-19 “vaccines” distributed the world over since mid-December 2020 to combat the “pandemic.”
The coronavirus which causes COVID-19 is known to have originated in Wuhan Province, China, likely in late 2019 and was first detected in the U.S. in January 2020. The discovery and rapid spread of the illness ushered in worldwide “lockdowns,” masking, school and business closures, “social distancing,” shortages of household goods and an increased suicide rate, particularly among young people.
The four-paragraph statement from Pfizer was an apparent response to a two-part video released on Wednesday and Thursday nights, respectively, by “guerrilla journalist” James O’Keefe, III, founder of the nonprofit Project Veritas.
Prior to the issuance of the first video Wednesday, O’Keefe had promised that the upcoming revelation would “break the internet.”
Both videos have been removed by YouTube but are available on Twitter under the hashtag, “#Veritas.”
In the first part, the company’s Director of Research and Development, Strategic Operations – mRNA Scientific Planner, Dr. Jordon Trishton Walker, told an undercover PV journalist that Pfizer was “exploring,” using monkeys as subjects, “directed evolution” to “mutate” the SARS-CoV-2 virus so as to create new vaccines and increase company profits.
In response to the journalist questioning if what Walker was describing constituted “gain-of-function,” Walker said “directed evolution” is different from “gain-of-function” research.
A paper at the NIH’s National Library of Medicine defines GOF as:
…the gain of new functions by organisms through genetic changes, which can naturally occur or by experimental genetic modifications. Gain-of-Function research on viruses is enhancing transmissibility, virus replication, virulence, host range, immune evasion or drug and vaccine resistance to get insights into the viral mechanisms, to create and analyze animal models, to accelerate drug and vaccine development and to improve pandemic preparedness. A subset is the GoF research of concern (GOFROC) on enhanced potentially pandemic pathogens (ePPPs) that could be harmful for humans.
In late 2017, a ban put in place in 2014 on “gain-of-function” research was lifted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). On October 21, 2021, The New York Post reported:
The National Institutes of Health has stunningly admitted to funding gain-of-function research on bat coronaviruses at China’s Wuhan lab — despite Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly insisting to Congress that no such thing happened.
In a letter to Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) on Wednesday, a top NIH official blamed EcoHealth Alliance — the New York City-based nonprofit that has funneled US funds to the Wuhan lab — for not being transparent about the work it was doing.
NIH’s principal deputy director, Lawrence A. Tabak, wrote in the letter that EcoHealth’s “limited experiment” tested whether “spike proteins from naturally occurring bat coronaviruses circulating in China were capable of binding to the human ACE2 receptor in a mouse model.”
Walker additionally told the journalist that Pfizer and U.S. government officials maintain a “revolving door” which is “pretty good for the industry” but “bad for everyone else in America.”
When pressed as to why that scenario is “bad” for Americans, Walker responded, “Because if the regulators who review our drugs, you know that once they stop being a regulator, they want to go work for the company, they are not going to be as harsh on the company where they’re getting their job.”
“In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research,” Pfizer’s statement reads, in part. “Working with collaborators, we have conducted research where the original SARS-CoV-2 virus has been used to express the spike protein from new variants of concern. This work is undertaken once a new variant of concern has been identified by public health authorities. This research provides a way for us to rapidly assess the ability of an existing vaccine to induce antibodies that neutralize a newly identified variant of concern. We then make this data available through peer reviewed scientific journals and use it as one of the steps to determine whether a vaccine update is required.”
The statement continues:
In addition, to meet U.S. and global regulatory requirements for our oral treatment, PAXLOVID™, Pfizer undertakes in vitro work (e.g., in a laboratory culture dish) to identify potential resistance mutations to nirmatrelvir, one of PAXLOVID’s two components. With a naturally evolving virus, it is important to routinely assess the activity of an antiviral. Most of this work is conducted using computer simulations or mutations of the main protease–a non-infectious part of the virus. In a limited number of cases when a full virus does not contain any known gain of function mutations, such virus may be engineered to enable the assessment of antiviral activity in cells. In addition, in vitro resistance selection experiments are undertaken in cells incubated with SARS-CoV-2 and nirmatrelvir in our secure Biosafety level 3 (BSL3) laboratory to assess whether the main protease can mutate to yield resistant strains of the virus. It is important to note that these studies are required by U.S. and global regulators for all antiviral products and are carried out by many companies and academic institutions in the U.S. and around the world.
According to scientist Dr. James Lyons-Weiler, PhD in a blog post Saturday, Pfizer is “admitting” to engaging in gain-of-function research with the phrase, “in a limited number of cases.”
Following the release of the first video, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) sent a letter to Pfizer President and CEO Albert Bourla asking six questions:
1. What efforts is Pfizer currently, or planning to, engage in to mutate the SARS-CoV-2 virus?
2. Does Pfizer intend to continue mutating the SARS-CoV-2 virus through gain-of-
function, or directed evolution research, with the purpose of creating new vaccines before
the variant is present in the greater population?
3. Has Pfizer engaged with federal officials engaged regarding their plans to oversee this
research? Please provide the names and agencies for these individuals.
4. What steps has Pfizer taken to ensure the mutated virus does not leak from the
laboratory and infect the greater population?
5. Has Pfizer engaged with other biopharmaceutical companies to collaborate on this
research effort? Please list the entities that you have been in contact with.
6. Will you commit to halting any future research that mutates the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine
as substantial evidence has indicated that similar dangerous research at the Wuhan
Institute of Virology very likely led to the initial emergence and global spread of the virus?
According to O’Keefe on Friday, the Pfizer release is the “most watched vid in Veritas history closing on 16M views on Twitter alone. It’s become a phenomenon.”
In an update, he reported YouTube had censored the “bombshell” video but that it had garnered 20 million views on Twitter. “Pfizer is scrambling today per sources inside,” he added.
According to Dr. Peter McCullough, an outspoken critic of the U.S. government’s COVID-19 vaccination effort, citing numerous safety signals which public-health agencies appear to have ignored, “We concluded Dr Walker revealed in sting operation that @pfizer is conspiring to commit domestic terrorism. Walker should turn states witness. Full DOJ/IC probe into Pfizer including the library of codes they hold now…”
The interview to which McCullough pointed is available here.
In a search Saturday morning using DuckDuckGo, The Post & Email located only one “mainstream” publication reporting on the Veritas videos, Newsweek, which attempted to discredit O’Keefe and his organization. After providing a substantial transcript of the conversation between Walker and the PV journalist from the initial video, Newsweek offered:
Even when O’Keefe claims that the second set of clips shows the interviewee talking about experiments beyond theoretical discussion, it’s not clear what type of experiments the interviewee was referring to.
He may have been referring to experiments on monkeys or it may be other research on small animal subjects (such as flies) or preliminary research or simulated mutations which don’t involve live specimens.
In any case, the video clip does not provide the information for us to be certain.
Virtually no news outlet has acknowledged the myriad injuries reportedly having occurred following the injection of COVID vaccines, which some estimate number in the “millions.”
According to UK cardiologist Dr. Aseem Malhotra, who has taken the vaccine himself, “the COVID mRNA vaccines do carry a cardiovascular risk, and I’ve actually called for the suspension of this pending an inquiry…”