coronavirus

[Tom]

If the anti-vax people are right then we should know within the year. This isn't going to be one of those proving a negative cases. If they are right it will be more like The Happening and there will be bodies all over the place.

We should actually know already. That we don't strongly suggests they are wrong, or that widespread, concerted attempts are being actively made to suppress that knowledge. Given the number of ethical people I know working in epidemiology, I am disinclined to believe the latter.

[msquared]

WhyTom? We know that every health care worker who supports vaccines is in the pay of Big Pharma.

[Tom]

On the topic of Big Pharma: I really wish that everyone who contemptuously uses that phrase, regardless of their political affiliation, were leaning on their representatives in Congress to prevent Pfizer and Moderna, after largely developing their COVID vaccines using public funds, from jacking up the price as soon as the feds announced their intention to stop paying for the doses. Surely this is something on which every single person who thinks "Big Pharma" is a problem can agree, right?

[Fenring]

Surely this is something on which every single person who thinks "Big Pharma" is a problem can agree, right?

Yes, but the problem of public resources being used to leverage private profits is unfortunately quite rampant. It's not just Wall Street where losses are socialized but profits are privatized. Corporate welfare exists in other industries as well, with everything ranging from price controls to direct government funding and government partnerships. It seems that public outcry occurs in very obvious cases of extortion or excess, famously seen recently with insulin, but I think most of this passes under the radar.

[TheDrake]

A Republican: We need to reign in big pharma!
Democrats: single player healthcare?
GOP: not that
Democrats: price controls
GOP: not that
Democrats: expand Medicare
GOP: STOP Medicare from negotiating prices
Democrats: so what do you want to do
GOP: weaken the FDA so they can sell more drugs
Democrats: what? Is there anything else?
GOP: make vaccines more expensive
A Republican: are you guys going to do anything about my prescription prices?
Democrats: well, we will if you elect us
A Republican: forget it, socialism is evil, long live capitalism!

[edgmatt]

Twitter Files: Big Pharma Pushed Social Media Vax Policy

Early in the pandemic, a push was made to make sure all people would be able to get vaccinated, so an international partnership was established to share ideas, technology and new medicines, Fang noted.

"But global drug giants saw the crisis as an opportunity for unprecedented profit," he writes. "Behind closed doors, pharma launched a massive lobbying blitz to crush any effort to share patents/IP for new covid-related medicine, including therapeutics and vaccines."

BIO, the lobbying group for biopharma, including Moderna and Pfizer, wrote to the Biden administration, demanding the United States place sanctions on any country that tried to violate its patent and make generic low-cost COVID medicines or vaccines.

[edgmatt]

Under White House Pressure, Facebook Censored Accurate Covid Vaccine Information

Under pressure from the White House, Facebook censored "often-true content” that a company executive said in the spring of 2021 "does not contain actionable misinformation" but was "discouraging vaccines." 

The email shows Facebook responding defensively to the White House’s then-covid advisor, Andy Slavitt. “This often-true content,” wrote Facebook, “which we allow at the post level because experts have advised us that it is important for people to be able to discuss both their personal experiences and concerns about the vaccine, but it can be framed as sensation[al], alarmist, or shocking.”