Pfizer Board Member Dismissed Key Natural Immunity Studies In CIA Briefing, Docs Claim

When Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb briefed the CIA on COVID-19 in May 2020, he dismissed two influential studies indicating the virus killed far fewer people than expected, a new document claims.

Two California studies — one in Santa Clara in the San Francisco Bay Area and one in Los Angeles — showed a less lethal virus than other models. Two days before the CIA briefing, Pfizer had announced the initiation of a clinical trial on four vaccine candidates in the U.S.

Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration (FDA) commissioner, advised the spy agency as a member of an outside advisory group, a CIA document revealed for the first time on Saturday claims. Then-CIA Director Mike Pompeo created the group in June 2017. Gottlieb served as FDA commissioner at that time. The impact of this advice on pandemic policies remains uncertain, as the CIA operates in secret.

The former FDA head stressed in an email to the Daily Caller News Foundation that CIA knew about his position with the vaccine manufacturer.

“I was asked by some political officials in the first term to attend a briefing,” said Gottlieb. “These were the early days of COVID when they were gathering a lot of different perspectives.”

Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul subpoenaed the document in the course of an investigation into the origins of COVID and Anthony Fauci, which has revealed new details about the intelligence community’s involvement in infectious diseases research.

CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

In the May 7, 2020, meeting with Langley, Gottlieb dismissed studies coauthored by now-National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya that could have hurt Pfizer’s bottom line, the executive summary shows.

The referenced studies, published in preprint form in mid-April 2020, found a higher than expected percentage of people had recovered from an asymptomatic or very mild COVID case and thus had some immunity.