As parents continue to struggle with a severe shortage of baby formula in the U.S., a May 11 tweet has gone viral for noting events purportedly related to infant feeding. It reads:
Pfizer says do not breast feed.
Baby formula runs scarce.
Bill Gates promotes new artificial breast milk technology.
All within 2 weeks.
The tweet gained about 30,000 retweets and 79,000 likes in a matter of days, and dozens of Facebook users shared screenshots of the post about COVID-19 vaccine developer Pfizer and billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
"Just a coincidence, nothing going on here," reads one iteration of the claim in a Facebook post from Just Another Anarchy Page, which was shared more than 700 times in two weeks.
Yet two out of three of the events comprising this "coincidence" didn't happen in the first place.
Pfizer did not discourage breastfeeding in recent weeks, despite a persistent rumor claiming it did. And while a fund founded by Gates invested in an artificial breastmilk startup in 2020, Gates himself has never promoted the company. The product is not on the market and will not be for several years.
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USA TODAY reached out to Jones and other users who shared the claim for comment.
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