Pfizer is arguably the largest of the Big Pharma companies today as it continues to lead in the COVID vaccine development and manufacturing space. But its influence can be tied to how the media portrays the company and its products.
Recently, it was uncovered that some of its board members has ties to the biggest names in international media. Now, another one of its members at the Board of Directors has been found to have ties to social media giant Facebook.
According to the National Pulse, Dr. Susan Desmond-Hellmann, who is a part of Pfizer's Board of Directors, served as the director of Facebook Inc. from 2013 to 2019. She was also the former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation from 2014 until 2020 and now serves as a senior advisor and board member of the Bill & Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute.
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said of Dr. Desmond-Hellman when she departed the company, which is now known as Meta, "Sue has been a wonderful and thoughtful voice on the board for six years, and I'm personally grateful to her for everything she has done for this company."
Dr. Desmond-Hellman explained at the time that she decided to depart Facebook because of the "increasing demands" from her role as CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, her "extended family" and her own health. However busy she appeared to be, the 64 year old joined the board of Pfizer in 2020.
According to the report, Facebook launched campaigns to censor COVID vaccine skeptics throughout Dr. Desmond-Hellman's tenure on the Pfizer board. Such campaigns were exposed through leaked internal documents that outlined algorithms that Facebook used to "drastically reduce user exposure to vaccine hesitancy (VH) in comments."
The New York Post reported that the leaked document titled "Vaccine Hesitancy Comment Demotion" shows 15 pages worth of plans geared towards "reducing the visibility of these comments represents another significant opportunity for us to remove barriers to vaccination that users on the platform may potentially encounter."
The Pulse report underscored the conflict of interest that Dr. Desmond-Hellman presents as a current board member of Pfizer and the influence she still has on Facebook. In addition, she also presents another potential conflict of interest as she also serves on President Joe Biden's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which according to the White House is the "sole body of external advisors charged with making science, technology, and innovation policy recommendations to the President."
This isn't the first time Pfizer had a media executive on their board. Recently, it was uncovered that James C. Smith, the chairman and former Chief Executive Officer Reuters is a top investor and a board member for the pharmaceutical giant as well. Smith was elected to the Pfizer board in 2014 and served in the Big Pharma's Corporate Governance and Science and Technology Committees. Smith is still involved with the London-based charity Thomson Reuters Foundation following his role as CEO and board member of Reuters, which he left in 2020.
During Smith's tenure with Reuters, it was found that the media company had published more than 22,000 articles mentioning Pfizer, versus a little over 8,000 articles on Moderna, the second biggest vaccine provider in the U.S.
