Posts have been circulating on social media falsely claiming that Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), is “part of Pfizer,” the company that developed one of the COVID-19 vaccines.
The claim was posted on Twitter on July 22 by Jonathan Feliciano, a guard for the Buffalo Bills of the National Football League (NFL) (see archived version: here) and has since been deleted. Feliciano's press team did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Reuters.
The same posts with screenshots of the content of those posted on Twitter have also been shared on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/timmy.latosek/posts/4526658410726695
https://www.facebook.com/i.liaueri/posts/885700175375306
The tweet reads: “COVID is proven to be lab-made. With Fauci also part of Pfizer, people want the vaccine. Sad to see you get the message that you can't trust the government. #dontshootthemessenger.”
https://www.facebook.com/timmy.latosek/posts/4526658410726695
https://www.facebook.com/i.liaueri/posts/885700175375306
As explained by Reuters here, the origin of SARS-CoV-2 remains disputed among experts. Further information on this can be seen here.
During the research, the British news agency team did not find any evidence to support the claim that Fauci is involved with the company Pfizer (here).
Fauci is not even listed on the board of directors (here) nor of senior management (here).
Any position held at Pfizer or financial relationship with the company must be publicly disclosed, according to the Ethics in Government Act (ethics.od.nih.gov/fd, here).
Keanna Ghazvini, senior associate for Global Media Relations at Pfizer, also confirmed to Reuters via email that "Dr. Anthony Fauci has never worked at Pfizer."
(Full article in English published by Reuters)