(NewsNation) — Project Veritas, a conservative watchdog group, published undercover footage of an alleged Pfizer executive who discussed experiments the company is running on the virus and the vaccine’s effect on women’s reproductive health.
The videos, which have tens of millions of views online, allegedly show Pfizer Director of Research and Development Jordan Trishton Walker telling an undercover Project Veritas journalist that the company was exploring plans to “mutate” the coronavirus themselves through “directed evolution.”
In a follow-up video from the same night, the man says: “I am literally a liar. I was trying to impress someone on a date by lying.”
It is unclear whether the man in the video is a Pfizer employee and if that is his real name. NewsNation hasn’t viewed the raw tape nor independently confirmed Walker is a Pfizer executive, though the company has not denied his position with Pfizer of his credentials.
Pfizer did not respond to NewsNation’s request for comment, but refuted the claims in the video in a news release.
In the first, heavily edited video, the alleged employee lists reasons why Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine could potentially cause issues with women’s menstrual cycles and even insinuates the company doesn’t know the long-term effects of the vaccine.
“There is something irregular about their menstrual cycles,” the man says. “We will have to investigate that down the line, because that is a little concerning. Because, if you think about the science, it shouldn’t be interacting with the hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal axis — the hormones that regulate their menstrual cycles and things like that.”
In a study published last year, a National Institutes of Health-funded study found a link between the COVID-19 vaccination and longer menstrual cycles, with an average increase of less than one day. For most study participants, the increase resolved itself following the completion of the vaccination, according to the study.
Dr. Danielle Jones told NewsNation that some women may have experienced this due to immune regulation vs. the vaccine itself.
“It’s likely that this is related to the boosting of the immune system, or the activation of the immune system more so than it is the actual vaccine or ingredients itself,” the gynecologist explained. “If we had information that this was harmful to people who have periods, I would be on the front line saying stop doing this.”
The employee also alludes to potential tinkering Pfizer may be doing to the virus itself.
“You know how the virus keeps mutating?” the alleged employee asks in the video. “Well one of the things we’re exploring is, like, why don’t we just mutate it ourselves so … we could create preemptively developed new vaccines, right?”
The alleged employee explains that they’re “not supposed to do gain-of-function research” but instead used the term “directed evolution” which he said is “very different.”
Pfizer responded to Project Veritas with a statement on Jan. 27, acknowledging that “in a limited number of cases” its scientists altered the virus in order to test new mutations against its antiviral drug, PAXLOVID.
But it denied claims made in the video, noting that the company has not conducted gain of function or directed evolution research related to its “ongoing development of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.”
Pfizer also said it is “working with collaborators, we have conducted research where the original SARS-CoV-2 virus has been used to express the spike protein from new variants of concern,” later adding, “We then make this data available through peer reviewed scientific journals and use it as one of the steps to determine whether a vaccine update is required.”
“Project Veritas is not inserting its opinion on this piece, these are all his words,” Mario Balaban, the group’s media relations manager, told Adrienne Bankert on NewsNation’s “Morning in America.”