Republican state reps attend anti-Pfizer rally

A viral video from a conservative activist group about Pfizer's COVID-19 research has prompted criticism of the drug manufacturer from Michigan politicians following a response from Pfizer denying claims it's engaged in certain vaccine development research.

Right-wing activists at Project Veritas recently published a video containing clips of conversations with Pfizer’s research and development director, who was secretly filmed by the outlet. The Project Veritas video contains footage from multiple conversations with the employee that were edited and compiled together, interspersed with commentary from the outlet's journalists.

The video appears to contain footage of the Pfizer employee claiming there have been discussions about ways the company could get ahead of the virus and pre-empt new variants that might evolve, while noting that this type of research would raise a lot of concerns. The type of work the company has discussed, he explains, is referred to as "directed evolution" research.

In the video, the research director explicitly says Pfizer has not actually conducted any "directed evolution" research on the virus. He also says the company has not conducted what is known as "gain of function" research, which involves manipulating a virus to make it more transmissible for research purposes involving coronaviruses.

In response to the video, New York-based Pfizer denied claims the company was doing this kind of work with the virus in connection with vaccine development. In the statement, Pfizer said it had not carried out gain of function or directed evolution research.

"In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research," the company said in the Jan. 27 statement. 

According to Pfizer, the company has done research using the original SARS-CoV-2 to express the spike proteins observed in new variants. The company stressed that research was only conducted after a new variant has emerged, and has not been done preemptively. 

"This work is undertaken once a new variant of concern has been identified by public health authorities," the company wrote in the statement.

"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."

Pfizer said it also uses computer simulations to monitor the effectiveness of its antiviral drug Paxlovid as the virus naturally evolves.   

Anti-vaccine activists have latched onto the video as evidence that Pfizer is doing "gain of function" research, which has become a hot-button topic since the COVID-19 outbreak sparked more than three years ago in Wuhan, China. 

State Republican politicians joined anti-vaccine activists for a rally at Pfizer's manufacturing plant in Michigan on Monday to protest the company's COVID-19 research in the wake of the video.

The rally at the Pfizer plant in Portage, which has been a source of national attention and local pride since late 2020, when the facility dispatched the first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine to hospitals around the country after it was developed in a historically short period of time.

Pictures from the rally posted on Facebook by the Grand New Party PAC show demonstrators gathered in the snow holding signs questioning the effectiveness and safety of the vaccines. 

"An extremely successful rally today at Pfizer," the group wrote in the Facebook post. "Hundreds of patriots gathered together to speak truth to power against one of the most corrupt and unethical corporations in existence."

Photos indicate several state politicians were in attendance, including state Reps. Matt Maddock, R-Milford, and Steve Carra, R-Three Rivers, who posted about the rally on his Facebook page.

In an email, organizers framed the demonstration as an effort to persuade Pfizer employees to speak out about the company. 

Several speakers at Monday's event said they were demanding "justice."

"We believe a wrong is being committed and we want to right that wrong," said state Rep. Joseph Fox, who represents the 101st District.

In one of the conversations in the Project Veritas video, the Pfizer research director appears to be seated at a table inside a restaurant purportedly talking to someone about efforts the New York-based company is considering taking in order to develop new or updated COVID-19 vaccines as the virus mutates into new variants. 

There has been controversy over the Wuhan Institute of Virology and whether the institute engaged in gain-of-function research, which involves manipulating a virus to make it more transmissible for research purposes, involving coronaviruses. The institute had received some funding for the research from the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Experts have said the U.S.-funded project did not involve a coronavirus that could have been responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic and that the research was not capable of being the catalyst for the pandemic, but some still view that kind of research as risky, according to an investigation published by The Intercept.

Republican politicians, including U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, and anti-vaccine activists, however, have used the Wuhan research projects to spread unfounded claims about the origins of the virus, which has killed more than 1 million people in the U.S. alone since the spread began roughly three years ago.

The pharmaceutical corporation also provided information on "resistance selection experiments" to determine whether strains of the virus can develop resistance to the drug. This research, Pfizer said, is carried out in a secure Biosafety level 3 lab. 

"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," the company explained.