If you like your Covid-19 vaccine, thank a big corporation.

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Last year, the world was hoping for a new vaccine to fight the global pandemic that was wreaking havoc in all of our lives. Giant international corporation stepped up and delivered a vaccine in a very short time.

This is why we have giant corporations. They can ramp up a big project quickly. They have finanicial resources and are willing to take risks in the hope their investment will pay a big profit. These corporations needed to assemble top scientists, reconfigure factories, manage testing involving hundreds of thousands of patients and set up distribution chains.

These are for-profit corporations who are operating with explicit goal of making a healthy profit. That is how our system works and it works well. Imagine thousands of small businesses trying to get financing to hire new scientists for a new lab in a project that may fail (at which point hey lose everything. The giant corporations provided us a quick turn-around time and a far lower cost than you can imagine with any other system (including big government by the way).

I used Google on my RCN internet connection to find a place a Pfizer shot. I got in my Kia and drove to my local CVS to get the shot. Then I went to Starbucks for a celebratory coffee.

For anyone who doesn't like big corporations, I am offering Uncle Max's All-Natural Preventative Covid Serum [Link Removed]. It uses only organic ingredients and locally sourced colloidal silver.

But if you are getting a vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna or Johnson & Johnson... you are benefiting from the efficiency of Big Pharma.

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Type: Question • Score: 8 • Views: 1,879 • Replies: 73

@maxdancona,

True, and this is why I oppose taking away those pesky patent rights.

1 Reply

@roger,

that's a yom

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

Giant international corporation stepped up and delivered a vaccine in a very short time.

More like giant national government stepped up, ordered corporations to do what was required, and shoveled billions of taxpayer dollars into rapid research, development, and production.

1 Reply

@hightor,

I don't get your point Hightor. The corporations developed, tested and distributed the vaccine. Without Big Pharma, we would not have a vaccine.

Maybe you want to give Trump the credit for his lightsoeed campaign.

I don't get your argument.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

I don't get your argument.

What else is new?

They wouldn't have been able to work as quickly if they weren't given massive funding upfront. The pharmaceutical industry, which has been sitting on RMA technology for twenty years, has been historically reticent to incur the massive cost of developing a vaccine and then find out its not profitable, not effective, or unmarketable. I do give credit to the government officials and CDC researchers who were able to convince Trump to go full speed ahead on developing vaccines. It makes a good argument for increasing government funding for research.

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@hightor,

So what?

If it weren't for Big Pharma, we wouldn't have a vaccine.

Even if your narrative is factually true (and I don't believe it is) it still makes no difference to the point.

We have big corporations because modern society needs them. A big corporation is going to develop smart phones, commercialize the internet, develop medicines, build airplanes. these things can't be done by anyone else.

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@maxdancona,

Quote:

If it weren't for Big Pharma, we wouldn't have a vaccine.

Without the biggest players in the pharmaceutical industry we wouldn't have an epidemic of opioid addiction either. Nor would we be subjected to arbitrary price rises for drugs like insulin and devices like epinephrine autoinjectors.

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We have big corporations because modern society needs them.

No we don't. We have big corporations because their influence over government policy has resulted in lax regulation and corporate buyouts of competitors.

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A big corporation is going to develop smart phones, commercialize the internet, develop medicines, build airplanes.

None of these things are, by themselves, "good". They're just things. It's how products and ideas actually function in society that determine how beneficial they are.

1 Reply

@hightor,

So what? The opoid addiction problem has nothing to do with the vaccine. You are arguing by absolutism.

Let's see if we can a few point.

1) Corporations were a critical part of developing the covid-19 vaccine.

2) Corporations are an important part of modern society and key to cell phone, affordable automobiles, the internet, airlines and cheap socks. All of these, with the possible exception of cheap socks are things that all of us rely upon.

3) Corporations do some bad things and have some negative impacts on society. The opioid crisis is a part of this.

I write a post on the important role corporations played in giving us a covid-19 vaccine. You respond with a bunch of irrelevant negatives about corporations. Why?

There is a knee-jerk, unthinking, one-sided and irrational hatred of corporations in spite of the fact that they are a key part of vaccine development, green tech, transportation and feeding the planet. (I am wondering if you are reading this on an Android device or an IPhone).

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BionNTec. not really a big firm, has developed an mRNA-based human therapeutic for intravenous administration to bring individualized mRNA-based cancer immunotherapy to clinical trials and to establish its own manufacturing process.
They partnered with with Pfizer for testing and logistics,

If BioNTec hadn't got 375 million Euros under the special programme of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research to accelerate the development of vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 - we wouldn't got the Pfizer-BioNTec vaccine so rapidly.

1 Reply

@Walter Hinteler,

Can someone simply acknowledge this fact.

For Profit corporations (both big and "not really big") played a key role in creating, testing and distributing

There is an absolutist political narrative here that refuses to give an inch even on clearl facts. Walter is here to point out that one of the partners, a publically traded for-profit corporation "isn't really that big". So what?

What is so difficult about simply accepting that corporations did a good thing? In this case, the corporate system worked. The infusion of money from governments to corporations was a perfect example of this. Governments acknowledged that they needed the corporations and they were willing to pay for the results that corporations got.

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This argument that governments are paying for a vaccine kind of makes my point.

Corporations want profits (with limited risk).
Governments wanted a vaccine.

The Governments gave the Corporations money. The Corporations develeped vaccines.

Both sides got what they want. The system worked.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

Quote:

So what? The opoid addiction problem has nothing to do with the vaccine.

We're discussing corporations.

Quote:

I write a post on the important role corporations played in giving us a covid-19 vaccine.

Sure. All you had to do was present it in context, and explain how the government and the pharmaceutical industry worked to produce needed vaccines in record time. Instead you posted an incomplete account which never mentioned government aid and portrayed the pharmaceutical corporations as altruistic organizations working for the benefit of humanity instead of profit-making cartels trying to maximize corporate earnings.

Quote:

There is a knee-jerk, unthinking, one-sided and irrational hatred of corporations in spite of the fact that they are a key part of vaccine development, green tech, transportation and feeding the planet.

Sure. There's also a knee-jerk, unthinking, one-sided and irrational hatred of anyone who criticizes the outsized role corporations have in the modern world.

– vaccine development: authorized by government, subsidized by taxpayers

– green tech: a response to the damage done by irresponsible corporations

– transportation: enable the the distribution of corporate products and services

– feeding the planet: promoting unsustainable industrial farming practices which deplete resources; polluting the air, water, and soil; driving small farmers off the land and into cities; encouraging palm oil plantations and the destruction of forests

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(I am wondering if you are reading this on an Android device or an IPhone).

I'm more appreciative of cheap socks.

Quote:

This argument that governments are paying for a vaccine kind of makes my point.

Too bad you didn't emphasize that fact in your opening post.

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@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

This argument that governments are paying for a vaccine kind of makes my point.

Corporations want profits (with limited risk).
Governments wanted a vaccine.

The Governments gave the Corporations money. The Corporations develeped vaccines.

Both sides got what they want. The system worked.

This is a thread about the development of the covid vaccine.

Do you have any comment on this topic? I will address your other topics too.... but I feel like you should at least attempt to make a relevant comment on the topic of the role of for profit corporations to create the covid vaccine.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

Quote:

...but I feel like you should at least attempt to make a relevant comment on the topic of the role of for profit corporations to create the covid vaccine.

Yeah, sure. In the USA, government and corporations worked to produce a coronavirus vaccine in a record amount of time. That's the way our style of capitalism has developed.

China, India, and Russia also produced effective vaccines (India under license from Astrazenica). As far as I know, corporations in those countries operate under different conditions than firms in the USA, without relying on "Big Pharma". This suggests to me that the successful model employed in the USA is not the only method of producing vaccines quickly.

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@maxdancona,

If this thread is about the development of the COVID vaccine, specifically, why title it about thanking a big corporation, and then going on about giant international corporations? You're not clear on what this thread is about.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

My pont is not that difficult Blue. The rapid development of the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson&Johnson vaccines is thanks to the good work of for profit corporations.

You can't talk about the development of these vaccines without talking about corporations.

This is a difficult point for those in a certain political bubble to accept, even as they all line up to get their Pfizer or Moderna vaccine.

2 Replies

@maxdancona,

Quote:

The rapid development of the Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson&Johnson vaccines is thanks to the good work of for profit corporations.

What about the rapid development of the Sinopharm, Sinovac, and Sputnik V vaccines which were done without Big Pharma?

Quote:

You can't talk about the development of these vaccines without talking about corporations.

You can't talk about the development of these vaccines without talking about the government's role in promoting public health and this is a point which is difficult for those who distrust and resent government to accept.

No maxdancona, I'm not going to "thank" the pharmaceutical corporations for behaving like good corporate citizens. Nor do I feel any need to "thank" the government for fulfilling its role of promoting the general welfare of the people. I'm simply glad that both of these institutions did their job.

2 Replies

@hightor,

Yes, I have no problem agreeing with you when you are correct. You are setting up an either/or where really both are true.

1) We relied on Big Pharma to develop vaccines.
2) We relied on governments to repond to a public health crisis.

Both of these are true. The for-profit corporations and government systems were both important parts of our covid response.

I don't see what your problem is.

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@hightor,

Are you actually arguing that Chinese and Russian state run companies are an alternative to Western Corporations?

I don't know if you are going as far to say this, but I strongly disagree. If you want true evil... look to state run organizations in China and Russia.

1 Reply

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