SUPPORTING STATEMENT: While Pfizer currently reports on its political and lobbying contributions, current disclosure is insufficient for shareholders to evaluate the proper use of corporate assets given to third-party public policy organizations and how those assets should be used.
According to Pfizer, “Essential aspects of our business are being challenged by barriers to access, counterfeit medicines, illegal importation, and challenges to intellectual property protection. For this reason, we actively participate in public policy dialogues to explain our perspectives.”1 It goes on to note its “Third Party Funding Criteria” of “think tanks and legislative organizations.”2
Such statements suggest that Pfizer funds groups seeking to prevent the sale of dangerous counterfeit drugs or improve access to life-saving treatments. What it doesn't suggest is Pfizer donating untold sums of money to promote divisive agendas outside its fiduciary remit.
For instance, Pfizer is listed on the Human Rights Campaign's (HRC) website as a “Platinum Partner.”3 The HRC indoctrinates children as young as 5-years-old with radical gender ideology and instruction on sexual orientation by pushing books and lesson plans in schools.4
Pfizer also “generously” funds the HRC's “Healthcare Equality Index”(HEl).5 To earn a perfect HEI score, “hospitals must display LGBT symbols, solicit and use patients' preferred pronouns, and conduct trainings on LGBT issues.”6 They must also “provide the same treatments for gender dysphoria that they provide for other medical conditions-meaning a hospital that uses puberty blockers to treat precocious puberty cannot withhold the drugs from children who say they're transgender.”7
It has become clear that promoting extreme, partisan ideology creates reputational and legal risk. Company bottom-lines, and therefore value to shareholders, decrease when companies engage in overtly political and divisive partnerships. Following Bud Light's similar embrace of partisanship, its revenue fell $395 million in North America when compared to the same time a year ago.8 This is roughly 10 percent of its revenue in the months following its leap into contentious politics.9 Target's market cap fell over $15 billion amid backlash for similar actions.10 And Disney stock fell 44 percent in 2022 — its worst performance in nearly 50 years – amid its decision to pursue extreme partisan agendas.11