Funny story: guess who made a quiet trip to the White House in July 2021, as Covid vaccine efficacy was falling off a cliff?

Yes, Albert Bourla, everyone's favorite veterinarian and CEO of the world's largest drug company himself! And his general counsel.

So there I sat, looking through White House visitor logs - no particular reason! - and whose name did I see?

Why, one Albert N. Bourla, chairman and chief executive of Pfizer! You remember Pfizer? They’re the ones who cured Covid.

Bourla and Douglas Lankler, Pfizer’s general counsel, along with a third man, Scott Cochran, dropped by the White House for a chat on Wed., July 28, 2021. According to the log, the meeting was only scheduled the day before.

The visitor log claims Bourla met Farhana Hussain, the assistant to Jeffrey Zients, who is in charge of the Biden Administration’s Covid response. Hussain graduated from college in 2016, so no disrespect to her, but it seems far more likely that Zients was the person Bourla and Lankler came to see.

White House visitor logs here

The meeting was held in high-end real estate: the West Wing’s Room 223, up a flight of stairs from the Oval Office. During the Trump Administration, the deputy chief of staff had that room.

If you don’t remember hearing about this meeting, that’s because you didn’t.

Remember - in late July, the media was still almost completely on board with the mRNA success narrative. Bourla would have had almost entirely favorable press had he come to the White House publicly.

He didn’t, though. I can’t find a word about this trip.

So exactly what was important enough to get Bourla to Washington on a 93-degree day in July? The Israeli data showing collapsing mRNA shot efficacy? Annoying independent journalists and ways to deplatform them? Vaccine hesitancy and mandates? Boosters? All of the above?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Oh well, I’m sure they’ll tell us eventually.