Pfizer paid groups to advocate for mandates, says report

Pfizer paid prominent organizations that defended COVID-19 vaccine mandates in 2021, according to a 2021 Pfizer financial report.

The report, published by independent journalist Lee Fang, features a lengthy list of grantees who received money from Pfizer. The first organization listed, 100 Black Men of America, received $100,000 in 2021 for “vaccine engagement”. The nonprofit organization — also a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation beneficiary — launched an aggressive campaign, partnering with Blue Cross Blue Shield, to target Black communities with the COVID-19 shots.  As recently as last week, 100 Black Men of America joined the US Health and Human Services Department in organizing a first-ever nationwide Vaccination Day event to increase vaccination rates among Black Americans.

Another organization listed in the report is the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which received $200,000 from Pfizer for “Building a System of Care to Improve Patient Compliance and Provider Connections in the Medical Home." The AAP successfully lobbied the Biden administration to push COVID-19 vaccines for children and has pushed against state legislation aimed at curbing mandates for children. In 2021, when serious vaccine adverse events like myocarditis and pericarditis began to catch the public eye, the AAP joined the CDC, HHS and other medical bodies to claim that not only are such side effects “extremely rare” they are more likely to result from COVID-19 which is why the vaccine is even more necessary.

The American Pharmacists Association, American College of Preventive Medicine, Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, American Society for Clinical Pathology and the American College of Emergency Physicians also made the list of Pfizer grantees. In December 2021 they all signed a letter to the Assistant Secretary of Labor for Occupational Safety and Health Douglas Parker expressing support for the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate requiring all employers with 100 employees or more to force their workers to take the shots, a mandate the Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional.

Corporate watchdog group the National Consumers League (NCL) came out in support of employer COVID-19 vaccine mandates around the same period it received $75,000 for “vaccine policy efforts”. The NCL has not disclosed that one of its board members Andrea LaRue is a highly paid lobbyist for Pfizer.

The Chicago Urban League, which received $100,000 from Pfizer, expressed its support for mandates when its president, Karen Freeman-Wilson, appeared on television to defend mandates as positive for Black communities. The organization left out any mention of its grant from Pfizer in the list of donors on its website.

The Immunization Partnership also did not disclose the $35,000 it received from Pfizer when it publicly opposed Texas legislation which sought to end COVID vaccine mandates.