Explosive revelations emerged last week when investigative journalists at Project Veritas released undercover video in which a Pfizer research executive discussed company efforts to intentionally mutate COVID-19 to aid in vaccine development, something critics suggest is akin to gain of function research, as Breitbart reports.
The video sting involves a man named Jordon Tristhton Walker, whose title at Pfizer is reportedly “Director of Research and Development – Strategic Operations and mRNA Scientific Planning, and a journalist pretending to be on a date with the corporate scientist.
During the course of the conversations between the two men, Walker outlines the ways in which his employer is attempting to get ahead of possible coronavirus variants that may not be vulnerable to existing vaccines.
Walker tells his “date” that Pfizer has gone so far as to contemplate the possibility of tinkering with viral mutations itself so as to anticipate necessary adjustments to vaccine formulations, though he notes the obvious -- and profound -- dangers posed by such a technique and references his suspicion that such a scenario in Wuhan, China led to the COVID-19 pandemic that ultimately ravaged the world.
“If we're gonna do that though, there's a risk of like, as you could imagine – no one wants to be having a pharma company mutating F**king viruses,” Walker acknowledged. WATCH:
BREAKING: @Pfizer Exploring "Mutating" COVID-19 Virus For New Vaccines
"Don't tell anyone this...There is a risk...have to be very controlled to make sure this virus you mutate doesn't create something...the way that the virus started in Wuhan, to be honest."#DirectedEvolution pic.twitter.com/xaRvlD5qTo
— Project Veritas (@Project_Veritas) January 26, 2023
As the Post Millennial reports, James O'Keefe of Project Veritas subsequently confronted Walker, revealing that he had just been captured in a sting operation and that his statements regarding intentional viral mutations had been recorded, and that is where things took a volatile turn.
Walker became instantly enraged upon realizing what had happened, seized and destroyed an iPad held by O'Keefe, and tried to convince restaurant employees to lock the doors until police could arrive.
“Is this real life? This is absurd,” Walker raged, arguing that his prior statements about Pfizer's activities could be chalked up to him “trying to impress a person on a date by lying.” WATCH:
The most insane video you’ll see today. I guarantee it. pic.twitter.com/WEz63vQFyF
— Eric Spracklen🇺🇸 (@EricSpracklen) January 26, 2023
In the aftermath of the Project Veritas exposé, which received tens of millions of online views, Pfizer issued a response, declaring that the company “has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research.”
“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,” the statement continued, adding, “[t]his 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.”
Pfizer further noted that “Most of this work is conducted using computer simulations or mutations of the main protease – a non-infectious part of the virus,” but that “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.”
Reacting to the Project Veritas revelations, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio sent a letter to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla saying, “Whether it's gain of function research, or selected structure mutations through directed evolution...any effort to make a virus more transmittable and deadlier is careless and dangerous.” The lawmaker went on to demand answers to a series of questions regarding Walker's statements, but whether any insights beyond Pfizer's aforementioned statement will be forthcoming, only time will tell.
