ISSUE #60: Profiting off of people's suffering.
If you think the pharma companies care about your health, you are in for a big surprise.
Has anyone else noticed that when victory over one strain of COVID-19 is declared, another variant, which is far more contagious, comes along and we are forced into practicing all the social health measures again?
What if I tell you there are people who don’t want this pandemic to end and are using it as a money-making machine to make tens of billions of dollars, while the average man suffers?
You are going to uncover how the big pharma companies enriched themselves and its shareholders at the expense of public health. In short, they prioritised profit over public well-being, grip on the monopolistic powers over fairer distribution of the vaccines.
Pfizer and Moderna are the two leading players in the COVID vaccine field and they both have become the household names since 2020. Let’s talk in brief what the past of these companies look like:
Pfizer was the least trusted company in the pharmaceutical industry before the pandemic and the company has paid the largest criminal fine in history in 2009. Moderna neither made a profit nor introduced any product to the market prior to the pandemic.
Since 2020, both the companies have been making billions of dollars in profit, thanks to their monopoly over the COVID vaccines. The duo is making $1,000 in profit every second, while 98% people in the low-income nations have not been full vaccinated. The top shareholders of both companies added billions of dollars to their net worth after the Omicron variant was discovered.
"Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna have used their monopolies to prioritise the most profitable contracts with the richest governments, leaving low-income countries out in the cold," said People’s Vaccine Alliance Africa.
That’s how you know whether or not they care about people’s health. They care so much about people’s health that they won’t even share their technology with other manufacturers that can save many lives. Do their need to make billions of dollars is more important than the well-being of others?
“Pfizer has faced criticism over its vaccine pricing and its refusal to waive patent protection to enable others to make the jab,” said The Guardian.
Imagine a scenario if more companies in more countries had the legal authority to reproduce COVID vaccines. It will undoubtedly help in increasing the supply of COVID vaccines, bringing down the prices, and distributing the vaccines among all the nations irrespective of their income levels.
More than 100 factories and labs could have been producing mRNA vaccines if its wasn’t for the big pharma’s patents, which are utterly nonsense and dangerous if the global health is your priority. But the big pharma’s refusal to waive patents show what their priorities are. One thing is for sure that the public health doesn’t top their priorities list.
Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla said that Pfizer is “the most efficient vaccine machine,” when in reality, the company is the most efficient money-making machine, which converts public resources into shareholder wealth.
Apart from their evil desire to prioritise profit, Pfizer has been accused of what one government negotiator called as “high-level bullying.” The pharma company not only demanded complete liability against any adverse side effects of its vaccine, but in some cases, it has also forced the countries to put up its sovereign assets such as military bases and embassy buildings as a collateral against any future legal cases.
This is what capitalism enables. Big corporations want nothing other than handsome profits, no matter what expense they come at. The COVID pandemic has taught us a lesson that was once taught by the AIDS epidemic. It’s high time we tear down the monopolies that these companies have built.