Chris Preddie wrong about Pfizer CEO not taking Covid vaccine
25 August 2021
What was claimed
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he doesn’t need the vaccine because he’s healthy.
Our verdict
This is a misquote from an interview from December. Albert Bourla said he didn’t want to take the vaccine ahead of more vulnerable recipients. He has since been double vaccinated.
A video posted on Facebook by Chris Preddie OBE claims Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said he doesn’t need a Covid-19 vaccine.
The video includes an interview from CNBC with Mr Bourla with text imposed above it which says “PFIZER CEO HAS NOT YET HAD VACCINE Don’t wanna cut the line”.
Text next to the video says “CEO OF PFIZER SAYS HE DOESN’T NEED THE VACCINE BUT WE ALL DO? HELP ME MAKE THIS MAKE SENSE DONT WORRY ILL WAIT”, and a video filmed by Mr Preddie that plays after the clip of Mr Bourla suggests that Mr Bourla declined the vaccine.
In December, Mr Bourla gave an interview on CNBC where he said he didn’t want to receive his company’s vaccine ahead of others who needed it more.
When asked when he would be vaccinated, he replied: “(The) sooner I can I will. The only sensitivity here […] is that I don’t want to have an example that I am cutting the line.
“I am 59-years-old, I am in good health, I’m not working in the frontline so my type is not recommended to get vaccination now [sic].”
What Mr Preddie’s video doesn’t say is that the interview took place on 14 December, the same day vaccine rollout in the US began (where Mr Bourla lives) and only days after the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine received emergency authorisation from Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The post also doesn’t mention that Mr Bourla has since been double vaccinated. He tweeted a photo on 10 March receiving his second dose.
The Facebook post only includes a clip of the full interview in which Mr Bourla then goes on to acknowledge polling within his company that found the CEO of a vaccine manufacturer taking the vaccine was more likely to encourage others to take the vaccine than if the US President did so.
Mr Bourla added: “With that in mind, I’m trying to find a way that I will get vaccinated, despite if it is not my time, just to demonstrate the confidence of the company [sic].”
Chris Preddie, who was awarded an OBE for youth work in 2012, and is now a prominent anti-lockdown campaigner, goes on during the same video to make other false claims about depopulation, and Covid-19 being the same as flu, topics which we have written about before.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as partly false because the interview took place in December, and Mr Bourla just said he would wait his turn. Mr Bourla has since been double vaccinated.
*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from Full Fact can be found here ***
