Albert Bourla, CEO of Pfizer, gives a speech during the inauguration ceremony of the company’s new center for digital innovation and business operations and services on October 12, 2021 in Thessaloniki.
Sakis Mitrolidis | AFP | Getty Images
People who spread misinformation about Covid-19 vaccines are “criminals” and have “cost millions of lives,” Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said Tuesday.
Speaking to Washington, DC-based Atlantic Council think tank, Bourla said there is a “very small” group of people who purposely circulate misinformation about the gunfire and mislead those who are already reluctant to get vaccinated.
“These people are criminals,” he told Atlantic Council chairman Frederick Kempe. “They are not bad people. They are criminals because they literally cost millions of lives.”
Bourla’s comments come because millions of eligible adults in the United States are yet to be vaccinated, even though vaccinations have been available to most Americans for most of this year. Public health experts say misinformation is likely to be a huge factor.
According to a poll released Monday by the Kaiser Family Foundation, more than three-quarters of U.S. adults either believe or are unsure of at least one in eight false statements about Covid or the vaccines, with unvaccinated adults and Republicans being the most likely to capture misunderstandings.
Some of the falsehoods include Covid vaccines containing microchips, causing infertility, and altering DNA, according to the survey.
Bourla said Tuesday that once many of the unvaccinated are vaccinated, life can “go back to normal” for many people.
“The only thing that stands between the new way of life and the current way of life is honestly the reluctance to vaccinate,” he said.
