Current Events > Why don't Pfizer and Moderna share their vaccine formulas with other providers?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Continued headlines of "Pfizer & Moderna developing Omicron specific formula!"

That's cool. Is anyone else? Or are profits more important than human lives? After all, heaven forbid we share our formula with a different company, and that company tweaks it to create a perfect vaccine with 100% efficacy.

What would happen to our profits then!?!?

because there aren't dozens of pharma companies chomping at the bits to drop billions of dollars on investing in infrastructure to produce mRNA vaccines?

A new report finds that, despite months of claims to the contrary by Big Pharma, at least 120 manufacturers in Africa, Asia and Latin America currently have the capacity to produce mRNA vaccines, but are not doing so because drug companies Pfizer and Moderna are refusing to share technology and information (and governments are not compelling them to). As a result, millions of people across the globe stand to die due to lack of access to vaccines, all because our international system is predicated on pharmaceutical monopolies, not cooperation and knowledge sharing.

The long list of facilities is the finding of a brief by two healthcare researchers: Achal Prabhala, coordinator of the AccessIBSA project, and Alain Alsalhani, from Mdecins Sans Frontires. In a new paper, they identified 120 global manufacturers with the technical requirements and quality standards to make mRNA vaccines production that would almost certainly dramatically increase the global availability of Covid-19 vaccines and thereby save millions of lives.

For context, 73 percent of all vaccines that have been administered have gone to wealthy and middle-income countries, while less than 1 percent went to the poorest ones. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned on Tuesday that the entire continent of Africa may not attain a 70 percent vaccination level until 2024, all while wealthy nations, including the United States, are moving forward with booster shots for vaccinated individuals. The equitable distribution of mRNA vaccines, in particular, has the potential to reverse this trend.

Why mRNA vaccines? According to the researchers, Unlike older (pre-2020) vaccine technologies which are cell-based, mRNA vaccines are made through biochemical rather than biological processes. This makes for a simpler system of production, and one that is more predictable and easier to transfer to other manufacturers than previous vaccine technologies. This means, quite simply, that it takes less time to scale up production. It takes three to seven days to produce a batch of the active pharmaceutical ingredient for the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, the researchers explain, as compared to one month for an equivalent batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
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A New York Times investigation published in October identified 10 facilities in India, Brazil, Thailand, South Africa, Argentina and Indonesia that are good candidates for manufacturing mRNA vaccines. Now, the Prabhala and Alsalhani paper, which identifies 120 such facilities,suggests that global vaccine manufacturing capacity is likely far, far higher. This news is not groundbreaking: In September, Indian civil society organizations identified 34 manufacturers in 20 countries likely capable of making the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/8/4/AAEqD0AAC2zw.jpg

Or are profits more important than human lives?

It's almost like we should publically fund all science rather then let capitalism sully the profitable portion.

Fuck out of here with this.

Worst statement in topic

The space shuttle was a public program from NASA. They could get one launch a year or so and each one cost like over a hundred million dollars

SpaceX comes along and makes reusable stuff that is getting the cost of each falcon launch down to less than a million per launch

There are drawbacks of privatization, yes, but many benefits.

Lmfao truth hurts, I know.

All the criminal activity these companies have partook in is readily available to look up VERY easily.

Educate yourself.

...or dontI dont care if you want to do what you want to do, by all means do what you want, just make sure that respect is returned, especially when it comes to medical procedures that involve any risks.

The space shuttle was a public program from NASA. They could get one launch a year or so and each one cost like over a hundred million dollars

I think you're reading from the wrong script here. The issue isn't the vaccines being dangerous, it's that they work and are being denied to the world's poor.

All the criminal activity these companies have partook in is readily available to look up VERY easily.

The vaccine is probably one of the safest drugs that exists lol. You, however, are spreading harmful misinformation/insinuations.

If the covid vaccines were dangerous the richest countries in the world would not be the most vaccinated.

If it's so easy then provide the sources. That's what you're supposed to do when you read to the class.

• Pfizer received the biggest fine in U.S. history as part of a $2.3 Billion plea deal with federal prosecutors for mis-promoting medicines (Bextra, Celebrex) and paying kickbacks to compliant doctors. Pfizer pleaded guilty to mis-branding the painkiller Bextra by promoting the drug for uses for which it was not approved.
• In the 1990s, Pfizer was involved in defective heart valves that lead to the deaths of more than 100 people. Pfizer had deliberately misled regulators about the hazards. The company agreed to pay $10.75 Million to settle justice department charges for misleading regulators.
• Pfizer paid more than $60 Million to settle a lawsuit over Rezulin, a diabetes medication that caused patients to die from acute liver failure.
• In the UK, Pfizer has been fined nearly 90 Million for overcharging the NHS, the National Health Service. Pfizxer charged the taxpayer an additional 48 Million per year for what should have cost 2 million per year.
• Pfizer agreed to pay $430 Million in 2004 to settle criminal charges that it had bribed doctors to prescribe its epilepsy drug Neurontin for indications for which it was not approved.
• In 2011, a jury found Pfizer committed racketeering fraud in its marketing of the drug Neurontin. Pfizer agreed to pay $142.1 Million to settle the charges.
• Pfizer disclosed that it had paid nearly nearly 4,500 doctors and other medical professionals some $20 Million for speaking on Pfizers behalf.
• In 2012, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission announced that it had reached a $45 Million settlement with Pfizer to resolve charges that its subsidiaries had bribed overseas doctors and other healthcare professionals to increase foreign sales.
• Pfizer was sued in a U.S. federal court for using Nigerian children as human guinea pigs, without the childrens parents consent. Pfizer paid $75 Million to settle in Nigerian court for using an experimental antibiotic, Trovan, on the children. The company paid an additional undisclosed amount in the U.S. to settle charges here. Pfizer had violated international law, including the Nuremberg Convention established after WWII, due to Nazi experiments on unwilling prisoners.
• Amid widespread criticism of gouging poor countries for drugs, Pfizer pledged to give $50 million for an AIDS drug to South Africa. Later, however, Pfizer failed to honor that promise.

No Im not. Im being skeptical

You, on the other hand, are throwing out bullshit terms like harmful misinformation to stifle debate on the subject.

No, you don't know how to be skeptical in this domain, you are not trained to evaluate these things. Your "skepticism" is just dollar store conspiracy theory, held up by a scaffolding that has been duct taped together by talking heads on youtube.

There is no debate here. The data has been collected, the clinical trials showed the vaccine to be both remarkably safe and effective.

Or are profits more important than human lives?

Yes, the data that Pfizer tried to hide behind lock and key for 75 years will soon be available (lmfao huge red flag right there youre overlooking), and can be disseminated by people who arent compromised or biased towards Pfizer, and then we will truly see how effective and safe their product is.

You're not living in reality my dude.

You're not living in reality my dude.

Well I did that and immediately got a Fact Check result.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/19/fact-check-resolved-lawsuits-against-pfizer-alleged-marketing-fraud/4857499001/

(even I believe they only are concerned about profit rather than spreading the vaccine en masse)

tl;dr it's really not that easy to produce a vaccine at all.

Like, I'm not denying that Pfizer has done some criminal shit (even I believe they only are concerned about profit rather than spreading the vaccine en masse), but using that for anti-vaxx rhetoric is beyond stupid.

You cant make this up either, you googled it and receive a canned fact check response, I ddgo it and get the actual list of lawsuits and criminal charges. Lol.

Why is that word even being brought up? Anti vaxx I mean