What was claimed
Pfizer’s CEO said a company goal was to reduce the number of people in the world by 50%.
Our verdict
False. Pfizer’s CEO did not say this. A video has been edited to make it sound like he did.
No, Pfizer’s CEO did not say his company’s goal was to halve the global population
27 November 2024
A video being shared on Threads has been edited to make it sound as though Albert Bourla, the chairman and CEO of the drug company Pfizer, said it was their goal to reduce the world population by 50%.
In fact, in the original video, recorded at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in 2022, Mr Bourla said: “One of [the goals for the next five years] was by 2023 we will reduce the number of people in the world that cannot afford our medicines by 50%. I think today this dream is becoming a reality.”
In the Threads video, the phrase “that cannot afford our medicines” is missing. Instead Mr Bourla can only be heard saying: “One of [the goals for the next five years] was by 2023 we will reduce the number of people in the world by 50%.”
We have fact checked this video before, when it was shared on social media in 2022.
Pfizer, Mr Bourla and the WEF have been the subject of widespread misinformation online, which we have written about many times.
Bad information can be dangerous if people use it to make decisions about their health.
This article is part of our work fact checking potentially false pictures, videos and stories on Facebook. You can read more about this—and find out how to report Facebook content—here. For the purposes of that scheme, we’ve rated this claim as altered because this video has been altered to change what Mr Bourla said.