“A bun in the toaster oven,” a woman exclaims off-camera, handing an ultrasound image to family members who erupt into tearful emotion over the news. “Oh my God!”
The touching baby announcement video then gets down to business as text appears on the screen amidst the ongoing celebration, suggesting the best way to stay alive for this joyous birth is by becoming vaccinated against COVID-19. “Why will you get vaccinated? … Because some people you just want to meet in person.”
It closes with the tagline: “Science can make this possible. Only you can make it real.”
The evocative 2021 television spot was funded by Pfizer just as the pharmaceutical giant was rolling out its COVID-19 vaccine. The spot may have seemed, for Americans, like any other pharmaceutical advertisement. But there was something missing. The ad, and many others like it financed by vaccine manufacturers, did not include any of the typical disclaimers about risks associated with vaccines, nor any disclosures that they had not yet received Food and Drug Administration approval.
Although Pfizer and other pharmaceutical companies were operating under a special Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) that allowed them to sell their Covid vaccines without going through the traditional testing and approval process, that authorisation explicitly required vaccine ads to include a prominent warning that the medicines had not been fully tested for potential risks.
A RealClearInvestigations review of ads that ran tens of thousands of times during the pandemic found that the major vaccine companies routinely exploited a regulatory loophole to skirt those marketing rules while embarking on massive paid media campaigns to sell the COVID-19 vaccines. By casting their spots as public service announcements – promoting the idea that people should get vaccinated, rather than a company’s specific product – drug companies claimed the disclosure requirements did not apply.
As a result, the required disclosure about the vaccine operating under emergency approval rarely appeared in any of the ads, even as many employers, including the federal Government, required tens of millions of Americans to get vaccinated.
“It’s an advertising laundering operation,” said Aaron Kheriaty, a bioethicist and fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Centre. The ads “violate the spirit of the EUA, if not the letter of the law”.
The ad blitz was plastered across television and social media and later celebrated by drug industry insiders as one of the most effective pharmaceutical outreach campaigns of all time. The flood of ads not only promoted Pfizer and Moderna’s products but helped influence public opinion, transforming an industry once viewed as driven by greed into altruistic heroes stepping up to solve a health crisis with no ulterior motives.
WPP, the advertising conglomerate that crafted Pfizer’s “Science Will Win” ad campaign during the pandemic, was clear about the motivation when speaking to a trade outlet. “‘Science Will Win’ campaign was about changing the perception that pharmaceutical companies profited from health and from sickness,” Claire Gillis, the International Chief Executive Officer of WPP Health Practice, boasted to the Drum, a marketing industry outlet.
Yet the role of the COVID-19 vaccine ads, which widely shaped public opinion and galvanised support for the drug industry, remains largely unexplored. Critics say it is another example of rules for pharmaceutical companies that were tossed to the wayside as maximalist policies swept through society. Online censorship, vaccination mandates, school closings, general lockdowns and other draconian restrictions were imposed on citizens, while drug companies poised to reap unprecedented multi-billion dollar profits were given unusual and largely unscrutinised leeway.
The attorneys general of Texas and Kansas have accused Pfizer of widely misleading the public on the effectiveness of its vaccine. Both states contend that the company violated rules that bar pharmaceutical firms from deceptive messaging, though their lawsuits largely focus on statements by company officials. Pfizer has denied that it misrepresented the vaccine and said in court documents that it is “immune” from claims since the company was acting under authorisation from the federal Government.
These so-called “direct-to-consumer” drug ads are a contentious area of public health. The United States and New Zealand are the only countries that permit such ads. A study from the Government Accountability Office found that from 2016 through 2018, drug manufacturers spent $17.8 billion on direct-to-consumer ads for just 553 drugs, almost all of which were brand name. Experts have sharply criticised the ads for misleading patients and encouraging many to seek out medications that are not clinically appropriate.
The tsunami of drug ads began in 1997 when Congress lifted previous restrictions and allowed pharmaceutical ads as long as they contained a summary of the risks of each product at the end of the commercial. This has given many ads a whiplash quality, as sunny visions of a medicine’s benefits are followed by a parade of horribles regarding common side-effects ranging from hallucinations and nausea to strokes, suicidal ideation and even heart attacks.
However, Covid ads from Pfizer that ran nationally during the early rollout of the vaccine contained no basic disclosure, despite the fact they were marketing a drug that had enhanced disclosure requirements. The risks around myocarditis and other heart issues were not acknowledged in spots, nor were the relative lack of benefits for young, healthy individuals with prior infection immunity.
The most glaring omission, however, was the lack of disclosure that the vaccines had not yet received FDA approval. Under the emergency approval to Pfizer and Moderna, issued in December 2020, both pharmaceutical firms were required to remind viewers of the EUA status of the vaccines in any paid media. It stated that “all descriptive printed matter, advertising and promotional material” relating to the vaccine must “clearly and conspicuously” state that “this product has not been approved or licensed by FDA” and was authorised only under the emergency use declaration.
Those disclosures were almost nowhere to be found in countless advertisements that appeared over the ensuing months of the pandemic, as Americans faced widespread coercion to receive the shot.
In a response to a request for comment, a Pfizer spokesperson claimed that the ads were “unbranded campaigns”, and thus no disclosures were required. Moderna provided a similar explanation. “As this was a non-branded disease education campaign EUA disclosures were neither necessary nor appropriate,” said a company spokesperson.
In other words, although both vaccine firms poured vast resources into marketing and advertising the vaccine, they did not mention the official brand names – Pfizer’s Comirnaty and Moderna’s SpikeVax – and therefore, under this interpretation of the rules, neither the routine direct-to-consumer disclosures nor the EUA disclosures applied.
That justification strikes some medical ethics experts as pure sophistry.
“Since the Covid vaccines were approved under EUA, even unbranded ads should have carried the required warning,” noted Dr. Martin Kulldorff, a biostatistician and infectious disease epidemiologist, and critic of many vaccine policies.
The intent of the ads was clear to the marketing firms that managed them. WPP’s Gillis, in her remarks to the Drum, said that elevating the brand as part of the vaccine ads was very much the point. “Go to the doctor and ask for ‘Pfizer vaccine’,” she said, discussing the strategy.
Dini von Mueffling, a New York communications specialist who assisted with many of the Pfizer ads, later discussed the effort with Contagious, another marketing industry publication. The “many legal regulations”, said von Mueffling, “I think ultimately stymie creativity”. But, she added, “we worked within those regulations and were still able to be very creative, which was great”.
Pfizer ran many iterations of its “unbranded” COVID-19 vaccine campaign. The ‘Because of This’ ad campaign featured real people rather than actors answering the question of why they will get vaccinated. “Because this year she turns one, and I’m 74,” the tagline of one Pfizer-sponsored ad read. Another, titled ‘Hug’, showed two women clutching each other, weeping. “Because you can’t hug a computer screen. Why will you get vaccinated?” the text of the ad asked, in a nod to the lockdown orders.
Moderna, while operating under the EUA, launched a ‘Make it Yours’ campaign to encourage the use of its vaccine. The company brought on partnerships with the Seattle Seahawks and Boston Red Sox. One of the animated ads featured former Seahawks star Jordan Babineaux, who instructed viewers to “always protect the team” and get vaccinated. “With the vaccines here to help millions, we can take steps towards life as we knew it,” narrated Babineaux.
In other cases, third-party groups funded by Pfizer and Moderna blanketed viewers with ads urging vaccination without any disclaimers.
Immunise Nevada, a nonprofit that popped up during the pandemic and then disappeared, ran Facebook ads with a doctor imploring viewers to “get vaccinated”. GovVax, another group funded by vaccine industry sources, sponsored social media ads touting vaccines as “free, safe and effective”. The National Hispanic Medical Association, backed by grants from the vaccine pharmaceutical industry, similarly sponsored a “Get Vaccinated” social media campaign.
Pfizer also tapped the largely unregulated world of influencer marketing. In one instance, the company retained the public relations firm Real Chemistry and an influencer named Darrion Nguyen, who also goes by @Lab_Shenanigans, to create a series of comedic skits mocking vaccine misinformation. The series, titled ‘I Heard It on the Internet’, mocked critics of vaccine policy as fools who did not follow the science.
Nguyen, who identified himself as a “real life scientist”, produced videos debunking claims such as “vaccines don’t work with Omicron variants” and “vaccines can make you magnetic”. The latter was certainly not true, but the former was up for debate. Research from Israel showed that the Pfizer boosters provided as little as 30% efficacy against the Omicron wave – and other studies suggested at the time that natural immunity provided as much as 87.8% efficacy against the Omicron variant. Those facts were not included in the Pfizer-funded TikTok series.
The star of the Pfizer social media ads, however, later got into his own misinformation scandal. Earlier this year, Baylor College of Medicine in Texas retracted research authored in part by Nguyen, citing falsified data and fabricated lab results. Nguyen, in response to the news, cited “pressure to meet expectations”.
While few news outlets covered Moderna or Pfizer’s ad campaign at the time, both companies were widely celebrated by marketing professionals for the success of the blitz.
YouGov called Pfizer’s ads the most successful of 2020, while Medical Marketing and Media, an industry group, awarded Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson for their innovative marketing efforts.
Pfizer went so far as to submit a detailed presentation touting the impact of its social media and marketing strategy during the pandemic to the ‘Shorty Awards’, another industry competition for DTC ads and drug marketing innovation. The video montage of the company’s success shows a series of public relations victories for the industry, including a social media pledge to ensure a safe and effective vaccine, which won Pfizer “positive coverage from almost every top tier [news] outlet”, including the New York Times and Bloomberg.
The success in selling the public was buoyed by Government support. The United States provided at least $31.9 billion in funds for the development, purchasing and production of the mRNA vaccines, money that padded record profits. Pfizer generated some $37 billion in revenue from the vaccine in 2021, making it one of the most lucrative drug product launches of all time. Moderna, meanwhile, minted four new billionaires as the company’s stock skyrocketed.
Kheriaty, the bioethicist, is an opponent of all direct-to-consumer ads. But he noted that the vaccine industry campaign appeared particularly pernicious, as Government and media voices largely echoed every marketing claim of the vaccine industry with little pushback, while the tens of millions of dollars of pharmaceutical ads provided an inherent conflict of interest for the news programmes covering the pandemic.
“You’re probably just at the tip of the iceberg in terms of tracing the money flow,” Kheriaty sighed.
Related Reporting:
— “Pfizer Quietly Financed Groups Lobbying for Covid Vaccine Mandates“
— “FBI Surveillance Contractor Probed Anti-Vaccine Mandate Activists“
— “Moderna Surveillance Operation Targeted Independent Media Voices“
This investigation was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and on Lee Fang’s Substack.
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On the one hand, civil servants who don’t like you will get up to any manner of things to do you down; a toxic public sector culture.
On the other hand, a Foreign Secretary who thinks it is okay to remain on holiday while British passport holders, British armed forces lives are in danger overseas during a foreign policy crisis is clearly something of a stranger to sound judgement.
Nobody voted for Raab being lord chancellor. Unless he is being expelled from parliament, alleging that he was driven from a job the electorate voted him into is wrong. Similar, he wasn’t driven from office by a mock-judical procedure, somewhat like a show trial under a communist dictatorship, but by a proper judical procedure according to the laws of the land. Reportedly, the Tories are in government, hence, it’s up to them to change laws they believe to be inappropriate.
Nobody ever voted for a Lord Chancellor in the whole of British history. The Lord Chancellor position ranks higher than that of the Prime Minister, constitutionally, hence the New Labour vandals – in their attempt to ‘European-ise’ the UK in order for it to be broken up as part of the United States of Europe – desperately tried to rip the role from the British constitution and create a Justice Secretary. They realised that the Lord Chancellor is so vital to the constitution that they had to restore it.
Raab was wrong to say he’d resign. Sunak was wrong to accept the resignation. The Civil Servants who bleated should have been shifted to different departments and the department itself cleared out.
Fishy and Chunt are WEF placemen. Possibly Raab isn’t so he has been removed.
End of story.
He was a covidian so no sympathy from me, though from what I read the “bullying” didn’t seem to merit that description to me.
The boundary between politically elected people, either MPs or Councillors, and professional officers, can be hard to understand. I remember a late colleague of mine, who was an experienced Councillor, trying to explain it all in the context of Planning. In particular, what the boundary was between him and the Borough Solicitor, and the full time staff in the Planning department. After all, you don’t have to be competent in anything in particular to get elected.
Anyway, trying to change course of someone like Humphrey Appleby can be hard work for some, and some of them can’t do it.
Andrew Lillico put his finger on it in a series of tweets. Dominic Raab regarded a cabinet minister as equivalent to a head of department in a big company: entitled to chair meetings, call for silence, tick off subordinates for missed deadlines or poor preparation and to issue direct instructions. Many civil servants now seem to see themselves as consultants supplying policy as a service and someone like Raab as a meddling client telling an interior decorator how to do their job.
30 years ago, people typically referred to the civil service and its advice as impartial. Now it is said to be ‘independent’. The word makes no sense when applied to advice (is there supposed to be something called dependent advice?) but plenty if it refers to advisers. At the start of the Covid crisis, the government relied on the independent body SAGE, but the moment it showed signs of thinking for itself a self-appointed group of people set themselves up as Independent SAGE. The real issue in all this is who makes policy? Ministers or advisers? Intelligent, hard-working politicians who have mastered their brief like Dominic Raab or the Blob?
The real issue in all this is who makes policy? Ministers or advisers? Intelligent, hard-working politicians who have mastered their brief like Dominic Raab or the Blob?
A pointless question. The operation of the civil service is bound by law. If something illegal was done to Raab, he needs to seek redress from the courts. If it was legal and enough MPs are convinced that it shouldn’t have been, the law must be changed. If neither the first nor the second is true, then, everything is by definition alright and the almost pathological hatred neoliberals have for anything associated with the state is completely misplaced here.
The power has shifted from Jim Hacker to Humphrey Appleby under 13 years of fake Conservative governments. The Conservative Party must be destroyed at the next election if small state, sound money, low debt and strong nationstate conservatism is to breathe again. We can no longer count on the conservative associations up and down the country to put their house in order.
The major cause of the power shift is inadequate politicians who don’t master their briefs. These lazy no-gooders thus rely on Civil Servants who hate and despise them. As time goes by, the Civil Servants begin to think of themselves as the leaders and refuse to work for the small number of ministers who have mastered their brief.
The Civil Service needs an overhaul and much of it needs abolition. The days of a Government being installed and the Civil Service supplying them with workers has to go. A political party should line up all the heads of departments they want for when they take over and those heads of department should hire whomever they want. Career civil servants need to go the way of the dodo. Why should, say, an incoming Tory administration inherit the same civil servants as the previous Labour administration? Better, surely that they bring in their own people who they know will do the job they want done properly?