There has been a considerable amount of understandable buzz and unrest making the rounds since a Pfizer executive was forced to admit to a European Union conference that they never tested their COVID vaccine to see if it would actually prevent infections or halt the transmission of the virus prior to it being rushed onto the market and mandated almost universally. This has left many health officials and elected officials with pie on their faces and vocal sectors of the public demanding answers. Stepping into the breach to quell the uproar this weekend is Reuters, publishing yet another one of their infamous “fact checks” to clear the matter up.

So what did they find? Did they uncover proof that Pfizer and Moderna actually had done those tests but the dog ate their homework? Nope. Nothing of the sort. Instead, they went the opposite route, saying that we were all mistaken about the vaccines and nobody ever claimed that they would prevent infections or transmission. All of you in the unwashed masses were simply confused, as usual.

Social media users are circulating video clips of testimony by a Pfizer executive, who is said to “admit” that the company and its partner BioNTech did not test whether their mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine reduced virus transmission prior to rolling it out – which is something the companies were not required to do for initial regulatory approval, nor did they claim to have done.

To get emergency approval, companies needed to show that the vaccines were safe and prevented vaccinated people from getting ill. They did not have to show that the vaccine would also prevent people from spreading the virus to others. Once the vaccines were on the market, independent researchers in multiple countries studied people who received the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and did show that vaccination reduced transmission of variants circulating at the time…

The misleading posts imply that national restrictions such as vaccine passports were based on a promise of vaccines blocking virus spread that neither the companies nor EU regulators made before the vaccines were marketed.

Well, I’m certainly glad that’s all been cleared up, aren’t you? Stop blaming Pfizer and Moderna for taking billions upon billions of dollars to rush out those vaccines, along with a guarantee from the United States government that they could never be sued for anything that happened in the aftermath. Never mind for the moment that the medical definition of “vaccine” is, ‘a substance used to stimulate the production of antibodies and provide immunity against one or several diseases.’ (Emphasis added)

And what does “immunity” mean? ‘The ability of an organism to resist a particular infection or toxin.” But why should we sit around and quibble over facts, right?

As with so many things in the fully politicized world of what passes for science these days, the defense being offered by Reuters completely missed the point. I haven’t seen any serious critics holding the feet of Pfizer and Moderna to the fire over this. They are upset over all of the people in power (who were supposed to know better) who very specifically and repeatedly said exactly what’s been charged here. They absolutely did say that the vaccines would prevent both infections and transmission.

Go back and look at this supercut of all the times we were told by multiple administration officials that if you’re vaccinated you won’t catch the virus and you won’t spread it. And here’s a greatest hits collection of just Joe Biden saying the same thing over and over and over and over again.

Granted, it wasn’t Pfizer or Moderna who told us this. It was Joe Biden (“You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations”), Rochelle Walensky (“vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don’t get sick”), Anthony Fauci (“vaccinated people become “dead ends” for the virus), and all the rest. Those are all direct quotes and they were repeated ad nauseam. Didn’t you assume they had at least talked to the pharma companies before saying that? I’m fairly confident that almost all of us did in the early stages.

So were they lying or merely incompetent? In retrospect, it doesn’t really matter. Either way, they were completely wrong and they based policies that crippled the entire nation on those “beliefs.” They also punished and frequently ruined the lives of people who would not comply with their demands – demands based on something that was patently false.

At the Daily Wire, Greg Wilson charitably points out that these fact-checkers are “missing the point.” People aren’t blaming Pfizer and Moderna. They are blaming the global governments who pushed these lies.

While there is no evidence Pfizer ever claimed its vaccine was tested for transmission, the notion that the vaccines offered such protection against the spread of COVID was seized upon by governments to compel people to get vaccinated. The distinction between individuals contracting and transmitting COVID was lost as governments sought to stop the virus from spreading.

I got vaccinated and boosted for reasons I’ve explained here many times and so did my wife. I never suggested anyone else should. I just decided that given my age and underlying conditions it was worth taking the chance. But I caught the ‘Rona anyway a little more than a week ago. I was sick as a dog and down for the count for several days. I still don’t have my sense of smell back. My wife caught it first because she works at a healthcare clinic. She came home and gave it to me. (Still not blaming you, honey!) So it was apparently pretty transmissible, even among fully vaccinated and boosted people.

Pfizer, Moderna, and the other pharma giants are making a bloody fortune off of this virus, but they’re in this business to make money. (Just check Nancy and Paul Pelosi’s stock portfolio if you don’t believe me.) They were tasked by the government to produce a new type of “vaccine” at “warp speed” and they did as they were asked. It’s the government that so many of us are upset with. Our leaders spouted nonsense with no factual backing and based a massive wave of authoritarian crackdowns on their citizens based on that misinformation. If Reuters wants to fact-check something, they should start there.