The CEO of Pfizer, the pharmaceutical giant behind one of the COVID-19 vaccines, used bold words to describe people who deliberately misrepresented vaccines: “These are the culprits responsible for millions of deaths.”

Speaking at an Atlantic Council event recently, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla talked about the collaboration with BioNTech to develop the COVID-19 vaccine and his stance on misinformation.

The Greek-born CEO, who has a veterinary background, stated that he sympathizes with people who are skeptical of vaccines, and stated that he “understands why they are angry with people who pressure them to vaccinate.” However, he has made it clear that he believes those who push this misinformation and profit from its consequences are “guilty”.

Speaking to Frederick Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, Bourla said, “There is a very small group of professionals who are deliberately disseminating misinformation [about vaccines],” adding: “These people are criminals. They are criminals because they literally cost millions of lives. ”

Bourla says “fake news” and misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine has done a great deal of damage. He states that “dark organizations” and even countries are behind malicious efforts to undermine trust in vaccines, and ultimately want to harm others: “I’m afraid they [caused] a lot of damage, and especially with us, many dark organizations that you don’t know [who owns] “We could say that we were targeted by the US. You suspect that there is some country behind it. We were getting a lot of briefings from the CIA, the FBI, about the cyber attacks that could happen to us, as well as the spread of misinformation.”

Saying that COVID-19 and vaccines are highly politicized, the CEO argues that this is one of the main obstacles that prevent life from returning to “normal”.

“The only thing standing between the new way of life and the current way of life, frankly, is hesitancy to get vaccinated,” Bourla says. becoming a statement did a great deal of harm to society. If you wear it, you’re a Democrat. If you don’t, you’re a staunch Republican. It’s ridiculous. It shouldn’t have happened, and it was a very bad service to humanity.”

Misinformation has been a common problem throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. A report from McGill University found that close to two-thirds of the anti-vaccine content shared on Facebook and Twitter between February 1 and March 16, 2021 could be attributed to just 12 people, including Robert F Kennedy Jr, Joseph Mercola and Sherri. Since 2020, many major social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, have issued new policies regarding content to combat misinformation about vaccines.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 193.2 million people in the United States, or 58.2 percent of the population, have been fully vaccinated so far. The global death toll for COVID-19 crossed 5 million earlier this month, but the real total is thought to be much, much higher. . .