RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/4470475-pfizer-super-bowl-ad-proves-just-how-damaging-bidens-covid-response-has-been-for-america/

Why did Pfizer spend millions of dollars on a Super Bowl ad? And why are they paying Travis Kelce $20 million to act as their vaccine spokesperson?  

Because their reputation — and the reputation of America’s medical authorities — needs serious rehabilitation. A Gallup survey conducted last fall found only 18 percent of Americans have a very or somewhat positive view of the pharmaceutical industry, down from 25 percent in 2022. That’s a worse rating than any other industry group but retail.   

This is one of the most damaging leftovers of the Biden presidency.   

Joe Biden’s authoritarian approach to managing the COVID-19 outbreak, forcing all workplaces of 100 or more people to require the vaccine or regularly test their employees and the censorship of opposing views on vaccine side effects and on treatments, not only trampled on Americans’ rights — it may have led to preventable deaths.  

Nothing could have highlighted Americans’ distrust of the pharmaceutical industry more starkly than the Pfizer ad, which aimed to rebuild not only its brand but general attitudes toward medicine. It’s hard to imagine a world where a leading drug-maker feels the need to remind people that science has led to life-saving breakthroughs like the invention of penicillin and treatments for cancer, yet here we are. 

The ad, wedged between promotions for beer and donuts and other more conventional fare, combined a jazzy upbeat tune with pictures of the founders of Pfizer, seeming to place them in the same scientific galaxy as Sir Isaac Newton and Copernicus, who came alive in their portraits long enough to join in the fun. It was memorable, mainly because it seemed so out of place. 

Pfizer’s problem is, first, that sales of its COVID-19 vaccines and therapies have cratered as the disease has faded. But more important, Pfizer is dealing with backlash against Biden’s heavy-handed dictates about vaccines.