‘There
are serious ethical issues,' James O'Keefe told Fox News host Sean
Hannity on Wednesday night, blasting the federal organization as being
borderline corrupt.
'When you have the
government getting money from the people they are supposed to be
regulating and you have an executive officer in that government saying
he did not know he is being recorded, that influences how they approved
products,' the political activist said.
The far-right activist group released a
report earlier Wednesday that includes edited video snippets from at
least two secretly-recorded conversations in January and February with
Christopher Cole, the FDA's executive officer for its medical
countermeasures initiative.
'Biden
wants to inoculate as many people as possible,' Cole said during a
February 3 conversation inside a restaurant, according to footage
obtained by Veritas. 'I think it's going to be a gradual thing. Schools
are going to mandate it.
'The vaccine,
it wanes, your ability to fight it wanes so the three will bolster your
system and then there will be an annual one just like the flu shot.'
The
FDA has dismissed the report, saying Cole does not work in
vaccine-related matters and that his views don't represent those of the
agency.
O'Keefe claimed he made an
appeal to Cole, asking him to expose the alleged corruption within the
FDA, but was instead told the official 'misspoke.'
'I asked him to become a whistleblower. Obviously he's saying some very true things here,' the Project Veritas leader stated.
'He
is saying he misspoke. And I said "which part did you misspeak about?"
And he said: "Well, then I was speaking in private, I didn’t want my
remarks publicized."'
O'Keefe added: 'Of course, that is the whole idea of journalism is to make public what powerful people want kept private.’
Cole's
comments were made public as some experts - including Moderna chief
executive Stephane Bancel - say they believe the pandemic will soon end
and that vaccines may no longer be necessary.
Project
Veritas said he made the comments to a female 'undercover reporter'
during what appeared to be a series of dinner dates. Cole later
dismissed the coverage as a 'hack job.'
In late January, Cole was recorded saying:
'You're going to have to get an annual shot. It hasn't been formally
announced yet because they don't want to rile everyone up.'
During
his dinnertime conversation with an undercover Project Veritas worker
earlier this month, Cole also dished on the government's financial
reasoning for promoting Covid vaccines.
'The
drug companies, the food companies, the vaccine companies, they pay us
hundreds of millions of dollars a year to hire and keep the reviewers to
approve their products,' he said.
'If they can get every person required [for] an annual vaccine, that is a recurring return of money.'
O'Keefe, speaking to Hannity Wednesday night, said what Cole detailed to the reporter 'are serious ethical issues.'
'I'm
not sure it's literally corruption, but this new story - which I'm
going to reiterate some of the quotes here - almost a billion dollars a
year ago into the FDA's budget from the people we regulate. The drug
companies, they pass hundreds of millions of dollars a year to approve
their product,' the journalist said.
'He
even said how hard it is for people to step up. He said he will be a
marked man. He will be marked from getting other jobs because of their
offices are not going to want to hire you.'
The Project Veritas leader also alleged
Cole 'rubber-stamped' the approval of of emergency use authorization of
toddler Covid vaccines, saying the move was motivated by the 'fountain
of revenue that goes into the FDA'.
'The
video talks about the fountain of money, the fountain of revenue, that
goes into the FDA. The money they get from these pharmaceutical
companies makes it more likely to approve their products,' O'Keefe
explained.
'When he says - and
repeatedly says - he handles these emergency use authorizations on
toddler vaccines, he says the FDA is not going to not approve the
so-called toddler vaccine. Basically rubber-stamping it.'
He
continued: 'He says that there's an emergency, so we're just going to
sorta rubber-stamp these toddler vaccines because it’s under an
emergency authorization. These are serious issues here and we want
answers.’
The FDA did not respond to DailyMail.com's request for comment.
President Joe Biden and his administration have been outspoken advocates
for getting vaccinated against a virus that has killed more than
925,000 Americans
Project Veritas was founded by James O'Keefe, who grilled Cole in a
follow-up interview about the comments he made during the
secretly-recorded dinner dates
In a follow-up interview with Project
Veritas founder James O'Keefe, Cole said his office was not involved in
the approval of vaccines.
He described the outlet's reporting as a 'hack job'.
'You videotaped me talking with someone on a date - didn't tell me anything, didn't say it was being videotaped,' he said.
'You've taken a lot of it out of context.'
It's not the first time Project Veritas has been accused of using deceptive tactics and secret recordings in its coverage.
President Joe Biden's administration has
aggressively touted the Covid vaccine as an effective way to prevent
infection or serious illness from the virus, which has killed more than
925,000 Americans.
As of February 14,
about 65 percent of the American population was fully vaccinated;
another 77 per cent has received at least one dose. About 28 per cent
of Americans have received booster shots, according to CDC data.
Moderna's
chief executive Bancel told CNBC's Squawk Box Asia this week that he is
confident the next strain of the virus after Omicron will not less
virulent, and that the way the current variant is running out of steam
is a promising sign.
'There's an 80%
chance that as Omicron evolves or [Covid] virus evolves, we are going to
see less and less virulent viruses,' he said.
'I
think we got lucky as a world that Omicron was not very virulent, but
still are we see thousands of people dying every day around the planet
because of Omicron.'
Moderna produces
the second most popular vaccine in America, having been administered 206
million times since it first became available in December 2020.
Link
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10520953/FDA-Executive-Officer-caught-hidden-camera-admitting-Biden-force-ANNUAL-COVID-shot.html
