No, Pfizer CEO Didn’t Say He Wants To Reduce World Population by 2023

Bourla speaks about his dream to reduce the number of people who could not afford medication by 50 percent, by 2023.

The video has been edited to make a false claim regarding reducing world population by 2023.

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint)

An edited video of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla speaking at the World Economic Forum's (WEF) annual meet at Davos, Switzerland is being shared on social media.

In the clip, Bourla is heard saying, "I think that is really fulfilling of a dream that we had, together with our leadership team when we started in '19. The first week we met in January of '19 in California to set up the goals for the next five years – and one of them was by 2023, we will reduce the number of people in the world by 50 percent. I think today, this dream is becoming a reality."

However, we found that the video was edited from a conversation between WEF's Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab and Bourla. In the original video, the Pfizer executive speaks about his time at Pfizer since he took over in 2019.

He speaks about how he and his team met in January 2019 to set goals for "next five years," with one of them aiming to "reduce by 50 percent the number of people on the planet that cannot afford their medicine” by 2023.

CLAIM

The video is being shared to claim that Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla spoke about the company's goals to reduce the world's population by half by 2023.

An archive of this post can be accessed here.

(Source: Facebook screenshot)

The claim is being shared on WhatsApp.

Archives of social media posts with the same claim can be seen here and here.

WHAT WE FOUND OUT

We looked for the conversation between Bourla and Schwab at the World Economic Forum (WEF) and found the full video uploaded on the verified YouTube channel of WEF.

We saw that the viral portion of the video began at the 02:33 minute mark into the video.

Speaking to WEF Executive Chairperson Klaus Schwab, Bourla talks about Pfizer's decision to offer all of their patent-protected medicines at cost to 45 of the poorest countries in the world, which would include approximately 1.2 billion people.

"I think that is really fulfilling of a dream that we had, together with our leadership team when we started in '19. The first week we met in January of '19 in California to set up the goals for the next five years – and one of them was by 2023, we will reduce the number of people in the world that cannot afford our medicines by 50 percent. I think today, this dream is becoming a reality."

Albert Bourla, CEO, Pfizer

Answering Schwab's queries regarding the inclusion of research costs to the medicine, Bourla emphasises that "at cost" means exactly the cost.

"We define 'at cost' strictly as what it takes to manufacture it, and very minimal shipment. We exclude all the research money that took to invent the medicine, all the legal that it took to make contracts," he said, noting that no administrative costs would be added to the prices.

Bourla further highlights that five countries – Rwanda, Uganda, Ghana, Senegal, and Malawi – had expressed a desire and intent to work together to identify blockages in supply chains that hindered medication from reaching the intended people.

Clearly, an edited video of Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was shared, claiming that he spoke about the company's plan to reduce world population by 50 percent by the end of 2023.

(Not convinced of a post or information you came across online and want it verified? Send us the details on WhatsApp at 9643651818, or e-mail it to us at [e-mail] and we'll fact-check it for you. You can also read all our fact-checked stories here.)