Pfizer, the first vaccine maker to receive FDA approval for a COVID shot, has used its power to “shift risk and maximize profits,” according to a consumer advocacy group that obtained secret government contracts.

Public Citizen found that only five of the 73 deals Pfizer has made worldwide for its COVID-19 vaccine have been formally published by governments, and they have “significant redactions,” DailyMail.com reported.

“The contracts offer a rare glimpse into the power one pharmaceutical corporation has gained to silence governments, throttle supply, shift risk and maximize profits in the worst public health crisis in a century,” Public Citizen alleges in its report.

The Manhattan-based pharmaceutical company “consistently place Pfizer’s interests before public health imperatives.”

Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine has become the most popular worldwide, with 3.5 billion doses purchased. And experts, the Washington Post reported, predict its sales will double in 2022.

One day after several Scandinavian nations announced a halt to the Moderna mRNA vaccine for younger people, Pfizer asked the Food and Drug Administration on Oct. 6 for emergency authorization to administer its mRNA vaccine to children ages 5 to 11.

The chief concern about the Moderna shot is the increased risk of heart inflammation, or myocarditis. And that was a stated reason, among other adverse effects, behind an FDA panel’s 16-2 vote last month against recommending Pfizer booster shots for those from ages 16 to 65.

Earlier this month, three Pfizer scientists were captured on hidden camera in a Project Veritas investigation acknowledging – contrary to the claims of the company and public health officials – that natural immunity is superior to the vaccine.

“I still feel like I work for an evil corporation because it comes down to profits in the end,” said Pfizer senior associate Chris Croce.

“Basically, our organization is run on COVID money now,” he said.

Pfizer scientist Rahul Khanke said employees are “bred and taught” to insist that the “vaccine is safer than actually getting COVID.”

He said “we cannot talk about this” in public.

Khanke explained that employees have to sit through sessions for “hours and hours” in which they are told to not talk about the superiority of natural immunity.

“Logically, though, if you have antibodies built up … you should be able to prove that you have those built up,” he said.

‘Unfair and abusive’
Tom Wright, research manager at the Transparency International Health Program, told the Washington Post that hiding contracts from public view or publishing documents filled with redacted text “means we don’t know how or when vaccines will arrive, what happens if things go wrong and the level of financial risk buyers are absorbing.”

Contract experts who have analyzed the leaked documents claim that Pfizer uses “unfair and abusive” contractual terms in negotiations that give them the right to silence governments.

Pfizer spokeswoman Sharon Castillo told the Post that confidentiality clauses were “standard in commercial contracts” and “intended to help build trust between the parties, as well as protect the confidential commercial information exchanged during negotiations and included in final contracts.”

Get Citizensjournal.us Headlines free  SUBSCRIPTION. Keep us publishing – DONATE