Fake news about Pfizer giving a special batch of vaccines to its employees

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The claim: Pfizer admitted its employees received a ‘special batch’ of the COVID-19 vaccine

An Oct. 28 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) includes a screenshot of an article about a major vaccine manufacturer.

“Pfizer Admits Employees Were Given ‘Special Batch’ of Vaccine, Different to Rest of Population,” reads the headline. 

The post received more than 1,800 likes in five days. Another version of the claim was shared more than 3,000 times on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Our rating: False

Pfizer ordered a batch of vaccines for its Australian employees to avoid draining the government’s supply, but Australia’s health department said the shots were the same as those designated for the general public. The claim originated on a website known for publishing misinformation.

Employee vaccines were ‘not different, separate or safer,’ health department says

The screenshot in the post is from an Aug. 5 story from The People’s Voice, a known purveyor of misinformation that says it makes “no representations about the suitability, reliability, availability, timeliness and accuracy” of the content on its website. 

The article claims a Pfizer representative made the supposed admission that the company’s employees “did not receive the normal vaccine” during a Senate hearing in Australia.

But no such admission was made in the referenced Aug. 3 hearing.

Instead, Australian Sen. Malcolm Roberts asked Pfizer officials to confirm whether or not the company’s vaccine mandate “was using your own batch of vaccine, especially imported for Pfizer, which was not tested by the TGA.”

He was referencing the Therapeutic Goods Administration, the country’s regulatory agency for products, including vaccines and medicine.

Dr. Brian Hewitt, Pfizer Australia’s head of regulatory sciences, responded by saying the company “undertook to import a batch of vaccines specifically for the employee vaccination program, and that was so that no vaccine would be taken from government stocks that were being delivered to clinics as needed.”

Read the whole article:

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2023/11/03/false-claim-pfizer-gave-different-vaccines-to-employees-fact-check/71427098007/

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Fake news.

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