Exhibit 5: FDA Internal Emails on ‘You Are Not a Horse’ Tweet — Apter v. HHS (S.D. Tex.)

Record facts

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas (Galveston Division) · No. 3:22-cv-00184 · Doc. 12-5 · 2022-08-08 · Docket on CourtListener

Full text

Exhibit 5
Case 3:22-cv-00184   Document 12-5   Filed on 08/08/22 in TXSD   Page 1 of 5

From:
Jefferson  Erica
To:
Woodcock  Janet
Cc:
Tierney  Julia; Safford  Melissa; Rebello  Heidi; Mulieri  Chris; Kimberly  Brad; Walsh  Sandy; Felberbaum  Michael
Subject:
RE: Sharing: FDA Ivermectin / COVID-19 Tweet Goes Viral
Date:
Monday, August 23, 2021 3:29:22 PM
Attachments:
image002.png
image008.png
Hi Dr. Woodcock,
I just wanted to update you on some cool stats Brad just shared from the tweet today. Since we are a data driven agency, I thought you’d appreciate seeing
some visuals on the numbers.
Currently, it’s the most popular post we’ve ever had on Twitter. There is a caveat with this statement given that today’s vaccine approval is on its heels.
All said, it looks like we gained a total of 11K followers across the accounts we posted these on. That’s up 636.7% from the two days prior. That growth is
17.6K overall, including today’s vaccine approval social posts.
All in all, we’re pleased with the response and the results here. It was also a perfect lead-in to today’s vaccine approval, meaning we reached thousands more
than we might have had we not picked up some additional followers that were drawn in by the tweet. 
Please let us know if you have any follow up questions.
Erica
ANALYTICS
Twitter:
Facebook:
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LinkedIn:
 
Instagram:
Case 3:22-cv-00184   Document 12-5   Filed on 08/08/22 in TXSD   Page 3 of 5

 
 
 
 
 
From: Woodcock, Janet <Janet.Woodcock@fda.hhs.gov> 
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 1:15 PM
To: Jefferson, Erica <Erica.Jefferson@fda.hhs.gov>
Subject: RE: Sharing: FDA Ivermectin / COVID-19 Tweet Goes Viral
 
That was great!  Even I saw it!  Agree, we need to be creative and accessible!  Excellent start!  jw
 
From: Jefferson, Erica <Erica.Jefferson@fda.hhs.gov> 
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2021 11:35 AM
To: Woodcock, Janet <Janet.Woodcock@fda.hhs.gov>
Cc: Tierney, Julia <Julia.Tierney@fda.hhs.gov>; Safford, Melissa <Melissa.Safford@fda.hhs.gov>; Rebello, Heidi <Heidi.Rebello@fda.hhs.gov>; Mulieri, Chris
<Charles.Mulieri@fda.hhs.gov>; Kimberly, Brad <Brad.Kimberly@fda.hhs.gov>; Walsh, Sandy <Sandy.Walsh@fda.hhs.gov>; Felberbaum, Michael
<Michael.Felberbaum@fda.hhs gov>
Subject: Sharing: FDA Ivermectin / COVID-19 Tweet Goes Viral
 
Hi Dr. Woodcock,
 
I hope you are having a great weekend. I know we are all eager for tomorrow.
 
Separately and as you know, the OEA team and I have been meeting over the past several weeks to discuss ways in which we can more effectively use our social
media platforms to share important public health information with consumers. I’m sure you saw some of the news coming out of Mississippi on Friday regarding
the use of ivermectin to treat / prevent Covid-19 and the increase in adverse events (poisonings) the state highlighted as a result of its use. I expressed to the
team late Friday night that we take the opportunity to remind the public of our own warnings for ivermectin and by early Saturday morning the social media
team had posted the following tweet:
 
Case 3:22-cv-00184   Document 12-5   Filed on 08/08/22 in TXSD   Page 4 of 5

 
Needless to say, the direct, straight-forward and clever (humorous) communication, paired with a follow-on tweet that provided additional answers to common
questions about ivermectin, saw the tweet quickly going viral and being shared across multiple social medium platforms (where it was amplified by other
influencers) and resulted in additional news coverage by: NYT, CNN, NBC News and Rolling Stone to name a few. Notably, the official Today Show Instagram
account (3 million followers) also featured an original post on the account. We also took the opportunity to highlight a Consumer Update on ivermectin, that was
prepared and distributed earlier this year. I’m pleased to report that as a result of the tweet, the update was accessed 177k times yesterday alone.
 
By comparison, the tweet currently ranks as our 2nd most popular tweet of all time in terms of the number of people we’ve reached with the content:
 
J&J Pause tweet - 20.4M
Not a Horse tweet – 14.5M
Immunocompromised EUA FB - 10.8M
J&J Pause tweet inside original thread - 6.8M
Pfizer4Kidz tweet - 4.5M
 
As you know, I am committed to identifying unique (for FDA) ways for us to reach the “everyday” American to “brand” FDA. I am grateful the OEA team is
enthusiastically supportive of this goal and in particularly, I want to recognize Brad, Chris and Sandy, for mobilizing quickly Friday night and Saturday morning to
create a unique viral moment at such a critical time for the FDA’s image and in our fight against Covid-19. While we won’t always be able to take this approach
(we are still a government entity), we will seek to develop content that allows the agency to feel both accessible and informative in a time of incredible
misinformation. We will be meeting with OCC soon to discuss our new recommended approach for social media engagement. We look forward to sharing more
about these efforts in the weeks ahead, including an ambition effort to counter much of the vaccine information out there as we prepare to approve Comiraty.
 
Please let me know if you have any questions in the interim. Thanks for your support on our efforts to evolve FDA’s communications with consumers.
 
Best,
Erica
 
Erica V. Jefferson (she/her)
Associate Commissioner for External Affairs 
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
Tel: 240-702-3994
erica.jefferson@fda.hhs.gov 
  
  
  
  
 
Executive Assistant:  Jacqueline.Thomas@fda hhs.gov
 
Case 3:22-cv-00184   Document 12-5   Filed on 08/08/22 in TXSD   Page 5 of 5

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