A Pfizer executive pressured Twitter to censor information on natural immunity and COVID

The social network gave in to the requests of the pharmaceutical giant's board member, using blocking tools.

A new edition of the Twitter Files revealed how a top Pfizer board member lobbied Twitter for content moderation that favored the pharmaceutical giant.

Reporter Alex Berenson, in charge of posting the latest thread, reported that the Dr. Scott Gottlieb, Pfizer fellow and former head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), used his influence to get Twitter to take action against a tweet that claimed that natural immunity against COVID-19 was more effective than the vaccine against the virus.

"It's now clear #COVID19 natural immunity is superior to #vaccine immunity, by ALOT [sic.]. There's no science justification for #vax proof if a person had prior infection. If no previous infection? Get vaccinated!" reads the post by Dr. Brett Giroir, M.D.

As the reporter explained, Dr. Scott reportedly felt that Giroir's tweet could affect Pfizer's sales, so he decided to send an email to Todd O'Boyle, senior executive at Twitter, asking him to do something before the "corrosive" post on immunity would "go viral."

"By suggesting some people might not need Covid vaccinations, the tweet could raise questions about the shots. Besides being former FDA commissioner, a CNBC contributor, and a prominent voice on Covid public policy, Gottlieb was a senior board member at Pfizer, which depended on mRNA jabs for almost half its $81 billion in sales in 2021. Pfizer paid Gottlieb $365,000 for his work that year," the reporter noted.

Apparently the media company then made the decision to prevent the tweet from being shared, replied to and even liked.

Gottlieb's other attempt at censorship

In September 2021, the doctor also attempted to silence Justin Hart, a vaccine skeptic and critic of lockdowns who has more than 100,000 Twitter followers.

Although it is unclear what motive Gottlieb used to try to censor Hart, the doctor expressed his opposition to a comment in which the critic questioned whether children should be vaccinated, shortly before the government approved the Pfizer vaccine for children five to 11 years of age.