After being called out for spreading misinformation for falsely claiming the arrest of Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla by the FBI this past week, conservativebeaver.com has published another article claiming that Bourla’s wife, Myriam Bourla has “died from complications of the COVID-19 vaccine”.
The website, which describes itself as an underground newspaper that started in “a U of O dorm room”, claims it is now available online and provides “Conservative news, Canadian style.”
Calling the article a “Beaver exclusive” the portal attributed the news of Myriam Bourla’s death to “her doctor” and alleged that she “passed away in the emergency room at New York-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital” due to “complications from the Pfizer vaccine.”
An archived version of the article can be accessed here.
Several Facebook users posted the news of Bourla’s death quoting Conservative Beaver’s article.
The news of Bourla’s death was also carried by a blog called The Arts of Entertainment which describes itself as “Latest Dead People and Obituary News – Daily news update including crimes and accident-related news,” on its Facebook page.
Newschecker found the claim to be shared also on Twitter along with a few posts questioning, “How come nobody is talking about this?”
Factcheck/Verification
To check the veracity of Conservative Beaver’s report, Newschecker ran several combinations of keyword searches on Google, Yandex, and Duck Duck Go browsers and found no authentic source of information confirming the death of Myriam Bourla.
Newschecker has mailed conservativebeaver.com asking them the source of information but has not received any reply at the time of filing this report. We will update our fact-check as and when we have a response.
Contrary to Conservative Beaver’s article dated November 10, we found a Tweet by Albert Bourla saying, “Enjoying the moment with my wife and Pfizer’s Chief Human Resources Officer,” at an award ceremony organized by Atlantic Council -an American think tank working in the field of International relations.
Further, In an email to Newschecker a Pfizer representative stated, “Our CEO’s wife is alive and well contrary to what was said on the Internet earlier today.”
“It is unconscionable that a person posing as a journalist would spread such outrageous lies about our CEO and his family with the goal of undermining confidence in a vaccine that has been given to hundreds of millions of people worldwide. They are deliberately and maliciously attempting to cause emotional distress to the Bourla family and more importantly doing damage to innocent people around the world who put their lives at risk by believing such rubbish,” said a Pfizer Company Spokesperson to Newschecker.
Newschecker also reached out to the hospital, where Miriyam Bourla allegedly died. In response to our query, the New York-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital confirmed that the claim was ‘not accurate.’
Conservative Beaver claims to bring stories, “that you won’t hear about on the mainstream networks,” and provide a “different point of view” to the readers.
But the portal is infamous for spreading rumours and fake news. Last week, in another exclusive report Conservative Beaver falsely claimed “Pfizer CEO – Albert Bourla- was arrested by FBI agents.” Newschecker’s has debunked the claim.
Also read: False Article Claiming Pfizer CEO Bourla’s Arrest Circulating On Social Media
After being called out by fact-checkers, the portal has added, “There have been rumours that Pfizer’s CEO was arrested on the weekend. While this claim was quickly shot down by “fact checkers,” it continues to circulate on social media and on blogs,” in their report on “Myriam Bourla’s death.”
Conservative Beaver has claimed “a temporary media blackout” as the “Bourla family has requested privacy after the passing of Albert’s wife.” The portal had reported a media blackout even previously in their baseless report on Albert Bourla’s arrest.
Conservative Beaver has published several unsubstantiated reports of arrests of famous people including Barack Obama and Pope Francis previously. Reuters Fact Check has debunked several false reports on the portal which can be accessed here, here, and here.
In an earlier version of the same article, the portal had stated that the NYPD has confirmed to them that Albert Bourla was a suspect in what they termed as “her suspicious death.” This portion has since been deleted from the article but screenshots of the webpage taken by Newschecker before the claim was deleted can be seen below.
Newscheker has also reached out to the NYPD for independent confirmation of the same claim and we will update the article once a response is received.
Conclusion
Newschecker’s investigation on Conservative Beaver’s report stating Myriam Bourla has died to COVID-19 vaccine side effects found the claim to be false and baseless.
Result: False
Our Sources
Confirmation from Pfizer’s Spokesperson
Albert Bourla’s Tweet
Edit: The article was updated on 16/11/2021 with the response of New York-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital
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