Does a Pfizer Ad Tell Kids the Vaccine Will Give Them Superpowers?

No.

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“PURE EVIL: Disturbing Pfizer Ad Tells Kids They’ll Get Superpowers from COVID Jab (VIDEO).” Or so claims the headline of this story from misinformation peddler the Gateway Pundit. 

The article focuses on a video recently released by Pfizer, in which children talk about “getting ready to fight COVID” by getting their coronavirus vaccines. “All of us want to be superheroes,” one child narrates. “And the most important heroes are those who help others. This year, thousands of kids like us, around the world, joined the COVID-19 vaccine trial. And when they did, they became our superheroes.”

The video refers specifically to those children between the ages of  5 and 11 who participated in clinical trials to test the efficacy and safety of the Pfizer/BioNTech coronavirus vaccine for children in that age category. The vaccine was approved for emergency use for children in this group by the Food and Drug Administration on October 29.

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  1. Avatar photo
    Ben Connelly

    You just fact checked away my last hopes at becoming the Hulk, Alec.

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    1. AHenry

      You can't be the Hulk. I'M THE HULK! Just ask my kids.

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      Alec Dent vertical-nib Author

      There’s still nothing stopping you from training to become Batman!

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        Ben Connelly

        Good idea

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    Nick H

    You probably could have ended this right after that first sentence. GP went off the rails years ago. They could say the sun rises in the East and somehow turn it into a lie.

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  3. Alex DeLarge

    "The Gateway Pundit article claims that the Pfizer video “tell[s] children they’ll get superpowers if they get the COVID jab."

    Well, the Pfizer ad says they will "be superheroes" and will then "share their superpowers" by "saving the world."

    But you rate the claim as false because 5 year olds are linguistically sophisticated enough to recognize the difference between "displaying" superpowers and "receiving" superpowers. That's weak.

    You should have rated Pfizer's claim as "false" because 5-11 year olds neither catch nor transmit covid to any meaningful degree. So they aren't saving the world. They are just getting a pointless jab to make some adults feel better.

    False advertising to children is pretty despicable. But Pfizer claims are obviously immune to corporate media "fact checks."

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      Mike B

      Sounds like special pleading to me. Clearly Pfizer is not telling kids they'll get superpowers from the vaccine. Gateway Pundit - and you - are deliberately misrepresenting the video in order to manufacture outrage.

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      1. Alex DeLarge

        The words speak for themselves. And they have to be interpreted as they would by a 5-year old demographic that believes Santa Clause and magic unicorns are real.

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    Aylene Wright

    Ok obviously the Gateway Pundit take on this is predictably bananas. As is the brouhaha over Big Bird Tweeting that he got the shot.

    However, I can also understand why some parents would be uneasy by the whole idea of a pharmaceutical company marketing a product directly to minors. COVID-19 vaccine is one thing. But what if Pharma starts directly marketing acne treatments? Weight loss aids? Etc.

    Many crazy rumors gain traction because they are exaggerated versions of valid concerns.

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    1. Midge

      There are valid concerns about marketing pharmaceuticals to minors, but there are also other valid concerns at play here. One is that we do owe gratitude to those who participated in vaccine trials. Another is that many parents are already interested in getting their kids vaccinated for COVID-19, and appreciate help (yes, even cheesy help from Big Bird and Big Pharma) getting their kids ready to behave themselves during vaccination.

      Child-management practices have changed. While grownups still use secure holds to vaccinate squirmy children, using overwhelming force on resistant children is much less common. Besides, a child who's needlessly dramatic could needlessly frighten other children, who might not be frightened otherwise. Getting kids to cooperate in their own care becomes more important the less normal it becomes to simply coerce them.

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      Aylene Wright

      PS: Now obviously OTC acne medications are already marketed to minors, but what if the maker of a prescription drug like Accutane, ran a social media blitz for it, for example.

      So this particular rumor I can't just shrug off as "social media is breaking people's brains".

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    Tmcke

    Sorry but fact checking comes too late. Most of those who consume this are lost to reason.

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    1. Ingenero.lux

      Sadly, while time machines into the future are more than possible, ones that go into the past appear to be, at best, highly unlikely. The best we can do without really bizarre physics and a lot of luck is try to reach people not in the “Most” category. But if someone wants to resurrect Stephen Hawking and give the other route a go, I’m all for it. What’s the worst that can happen with a reanimated scientist trying to invent a time machine using highly speculative physics?

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    Show Jay Janney the 🚪!

    Well, I did tell him he had a chance to win a scholarship, so that's almost a superpower to get free college....

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  7. Avatar photo
    Picov Andropov

    How. Are. People. So. Stupid.

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    1. Ingenero.lux

      Remember that cocaine, opium, and alcohol were the main (sometimes secret) ingredients in most “medicines” sold at one point (Soothing syrup to quiet your kids! Cocaine to give you vim and vigor! It’s not the grain alcohol or procaine that make you feel better, it’s the secret Indian herb blend!), Heroin was billed as a less addictive alternative to Morphine, and Radium-laced water was sold as a health tonic. The latter until a rich and prolific user started having his body rot away, had to have his jaw surgically removed, and was buried in a lead-lined coffin.

      I don’t think people on average became less stupid, the stupidity just morphed and society as a whole pretended people in the past were dumb because we didn’t like thinking that we could just as easily do the exact same things if our books didn’t tell us how dumb these ideas were.

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      1. Avatar photo
        Picov Andropov

        True. Human nature hasn’t changed even though our technology and medicine have rapidly improved over the past two centuries. I was being a bit facetious in my prior comment.

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        1. Ingenero.lux

          Oh, I figured. But it brightens my day when I remember people haven’t changed as much as we often think. Just when I wonder how so much insanity exists, I remember that we once dressed doctors in bird costumes to protect them against the plague (and they inadvertently worked), or that Victorians thought people should sleep with interior temperatures about as cold as possible, and realize things aren’t so bad.

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      George.Skinner

      My brother put it this way: think about how stupid the average person can be, and then remember that 50% of the population isn't even that smart.

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        Ben Connelly

        I’ve heard that before but it’s a classic. Still good.

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        Mike B

        Well, actually that would be the median person, not the average person. But let us not be pedantic.

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