Online Hunt: Pfizer Launches Legal Effort to Combat COVID Vaccine Misinformation
© REUTERS / DADO RUVIC
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Pfizer is ramping up a program to combat vaccine misinformation. Company CEO Albert Bourla recently described those who spread vaccine misinformation as “criminals,” and lawyers for Pfizer are now pursuing defamation charges against at least one website that spread misinformation.
Pfizer’s counsel, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, filed an Order pursuant to Section 3102(c) of the Civil Practice Law and Rules to Compel Pre-Action Disclosure from DreamHost LLC in the state of New York on November 16.
The complaint asks DreamHost LLC, a company registered in Brea, California, that provides web hosting services, to provide Pfizer with the identity of the individual who ran the, as of November 26th, defunct website, the Conservative Beaver, in order to file a defamation case against the individual who ran two articles that contained the vaccine misinformation.
The first article, posted November 5, claimed that Pfizer CEO Bourla had been arrested and charged with multiple counts of fraud stemming from falsifying vaccine data and bribing officials. The post also alleged a media blackout of the event by the mainstream media.
Another article, posted on November 10, alleged that Bourla’s wife had been forced by her husband to take the Covid vaccine and had subsequently died. She is not dead and there has been no indication that she was forced to take the vaccine.
A Pfizer official confirmed the wife of the company's CEO is alive and well, contrary to widely-shared social media posts. A blog known for publishing misinformation falsely claimed she had experienced complications from the COVID-19 vaccine and died. https://t.co/YZA5L74UxV
— AP Fact Check (@APFactCheck) November 17, 2021
The filing could provide Pfizer and other vaccine developers and manufacturers a roadmap to combat vaccine misinformation. Pfizer’s legal proceedings are unusual, according to legal observers, as they are asking for documents before formally filing a lawsuit.
If they are successful, it could provide precedent for other companies to combat misinformation.
The Pfizer CEO, in an interview with the Atlantic Council think tank, described those who spread vaccine misinformation as “criminals.”
“They’re not [just] bad people," he said. "They’re criminals because they have literally cost millions of lives.”
The task is challenging, however, as Bourla and company lawyers must wade through layers of online identity. Short-lived online media groups that disseminate vaccine misinformation, like the Conservative Beaver, are often run by entities that are extremely difficult to identify.
