No, I am not an anti-vaxxer nutter. I get a flu shot every year. And I fully intend to get a Covid-19 vaccine when the FDA approves one.
The problem is that immunologists have been all over TV commenting on their vaccine development like a sports analyst commenting on a friggin’ baseball game.
Trust me, the analogy is apt. And not just because Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s most famous immunologist, will be throwing out the Opening-Day pitch when the Washington Nationals host the New York Yankees tonight.
It’s apt because far too many of them are giving the American people the impression that a vaccine will be available in 9 months, mirroring the 9 innings of a baseball game. This, instead of the years it usually takes to develop effective vaccines.
Early estimates of the production a million doses of the University of Oxford’s experimental COVID-19 vaccine by September could be an underestimate depending on how quickly late-stage trials can be completed, a researcher said on Monday.
‘There might be a million doses manufactured by September: that now seems like a remarkable underestimate, given the scale of what’s going on,’ Adrian Hill of University of Oxford said, referring to the manufacturing capability of partner AstraZeneca.
(Reuters, July 20, 2020)
Of course, nobody doubts AstraZeneca can manufacture millions of doses by September, especially given that President Trump has already pledged to use taxpayer dollars to buy up every dose. The fear is that its vaccine will not be any more effective than the hydroxychloroquine he was peddling before his own FDA shut him up in the interest of public health.
Not to mention the red flag inherent in Trump naming this global research for a Covid-19 vaccine “Operation Warp Speed.”
Meanwhile, these same researchers never bother to caution that they are still trying to find a vaccine for HIV/AIDS 36 years after the outbreak of that pandemic. Clearly there’s something profoundly unethical in their failure to do so – as Drs. Sanjay Gupta and Peter Hotez invariably bemoan during their regular appearances on CNN.
Dr. Paul Offit, the co-inventor of the successful rotavirus vaccine, put it more bluntly.
‘When Dr. Fauci said 12 to 18 months, I thought that was ridiculously optimistic,’ he told CNN. ‘And I’m sure he did, too.’
(CNN, April 1, 2020)
But here’s the bottom line on why researchers are sacrificing their professional ethics:
[B]iotech stocks, tied to a coronavirus vaccine development program, have been surging lately. In fact, shares of Moderna, Inc. MRNA and Novavax, Inc. NVAX have skyrocketed 202% and 2521.1% year to date, respectively, as investors remain optimistic about the biotech firms’ coronavirus vaccine programs.
Johnson & Johnson JNJ is also among the front runners to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Its stock hit a low on March 2020 but quickly recovered in less than a month on bullish expectations for its COVID-19 vaccine.
(Yahoo! Finance, July 14, 2020)
So beware when you see them on TV hyping their vaccine research and trials. Because they’re just pumping the stock for shareholders to dump. And I’m sure the big pharmaceutical companies funding their research are paying them very handsomely to do so.
Even worse, it does not matter if the vaccines are effective when all is said and done. Because executives at those big pharmaceutical companies will have already pocketed millions by selling as shares in their companies “skyrocketed”: heads they win, tails we lose.
Sick!
Finally, apropos of sounding a note of caution, clearly these researchers won’t, but I feel obliged to reiterate this one:
Everyone … is hoping against hope that a Covid-19 vaccine will prove a panacea. And you can be sure this scientific pursuit is aimed more at making money than saving lives. But even the most optimistic prospects [should] not anticipate having one available for this fall.
Moreover, I have taken pains to point out that, just as a flu vaccine has not prevented tens of thousands from dying each year, a Covid-19 vaccine won’t either. And the experts keep telling us that this coronavirus is at least ten times deadlier than the flu.
(“Covid-20 Is Coming. What Happens Then…?” The iPINIONS Journal, April 23, 2020)
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