Pfizer statement admits gain of function and creating immune escaping variants.
This article owes a lot to the Coffee & Covid analysis of the wording of the Pfizer press release - Hat tip to L.H.
While it was clear to me that from Rand Paul’s questioning of Fauci in July 20, 2021 that what NIH and probably Pfizer calls gain of function is only specifically modifying a virus intentionally to be more infectious to humans: modifying a virus in a way that might make it more infectious to humans (e.g. by modifying a virus to make it more transmissible to mice with human ACE2 receptors, thereby ‘inadvertently’ making it more transmissible to humans ) is (rather deceitfully) not gain of function (at least according to Fauci ), and in my opinion Pfizer confirms this definition by describing their research thus:
In the ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer 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.
Coffee & Covid points out that Pfizer does not mention their affiliates or subcontractors in this statement. This omission certainly is significant and is almost certainly an indicator of guilt, and implies that they are perfectly aware of EcoHealth alliance’s contribution to the creation of viruses in Wuhan, verifiably in the same family branch as COVID-19.
Coffee & Covid also says they have a lab in Israel where there are no laws prohibiting gain of function. Pfizer do indeed have laboratories in Israel - one particular new lab that is a partnership between AstraZeneca, Merck, Pfizer, Teva, Amazon Web Services and Israel Biotech Fund that uses AI and computational science to streamline drug development. Addendum: There are other countries too, that have no gain of function laws and are not signatories to the international conventions; Ukraine for example.
To my knowledge Israel has no rules against gain of function research; the Israeli legislation merely limits who may possess dangerous pathogens to scientists and researchers approved by the Israeli Council for Monitoring Biological Disease Agents Research. In addition the US does not have laws prohibiting US companies from doing gain of function research overseas.
Furthermore Coffee & Covid points out that the bolded sentence means they are forcing mutations to see if some viral mutations are resistant to their drugs:
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.
This is actually what one would have to call forced evolution, and Coffee & Covid is completely right in saying it should be completely illegal.
Incidentally, Pfizer boss, Philip Dormitzer, called the whole of Israel a COVID Vaccine laboratory in a statement in September 2021. Dormitzer said, “Early in the pandemic we established a relationship with the Israeli Ministry of Health where they used exclusively the Pfizer vaccine and then monitored it very closely, so we had a sort of laboratory where we could see the effect.” Albert Bourla also said the same thing. “I believe Israel has become the world's lab right now because they are using only our vaccine at this state and they have vaccinated a very big part of their population, so we can study both economy and health indices… What we've seen is that the vaccine efficacy in real-world data is getting higher as we speak, following the second vaccination, so seven days compared to 14 days post-second vaccination, there is a difference in efficacy," Bourla claimed. In reply to the question of whether a person could infect others after receiving two doses, he said: "It is something that needs to be confirmed, and the real-world data that we are getting from Israel and other studies will help us understand this better. But there are a lot of indicators right now that are telling us that there is a protection against the transmission of the disease."
Of course, we know now that right at the start they were not even testing to find out if the vaccines stopped transmission.
These observations have been added to my main article about this topic, Fact Check: Pfizer is planning on mutating viruses
Addendum:
Subsequently thinking about it, I realised that essentially Pfizer’s statement is morally equivalent to a car thief saying, “I only borrowed the car.” Or a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar saying, “I was just checking that the lid was working.” It is unbelievably brazen of Pfizer, actually, to deny gain of function and forced evolution and admit to it in the same statement.
References
https://www.ima.org.il/FilesUploadPublic/IMAJ/0/99/49530.pdf
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/117/hr4071
https://firstfactcheck.substack.com/p/not-only-did-pfizer-not-know-what
My fact check on the Jordon Walker video, followed by some of my other fact checks that relate to this article: