[AFAIK]

Oxford university developed a vaccine using public funds and was planning to license it to multiple manufacturers on a non-profit basis until Bill Gates personally intervened and threatened to withdraw all funding the entire university receives from his foundation. Astra-Zeneca provides final mile connections by performing the relatively simple task of conducting trials, manufacturing doses and deciding how to package and market the vaccine.

[fuser]

The Serum Institute is one of the most experienced vaccine manufacturers worldwide. Still it has taken at least 8 months for the company to start producing.

So its not 1-2 years in Best case scenario now? Just stop, this is getting ridiculous. Also no it didn't take 8 months for Serum Institute when vaccine made by Oxford started rolling in UK , only two months later it was rolling in India too. You seriously can't count time just after the deal when the vaccine was still in the experimental stage, that's ridiculous. Imagine if such a deal had been made with numerous other such producers world over, we could had saved many lives which will be lost now.

And once again unlike you, I am not going to deal in counterfactuals, the fact is that your original points are complete bonkers when checked against actual reality. It won't take years for other producers to start producing (you made that up) and I am not even going to touch upon the sheer absurd cognitive dissonance going on with you where it won't be fair for these pharmas because they invested 20 billion while simultaneously saying that they will provide it for free, just wait.

But then it should be expected of people promoting fourth reich that they will be gleeful at the prospect of wanton death.

[B0ycey]

Just in case anyone for whatever reason didn't think this was about profits, greed and capitalism...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-56504546

The clown spelt it out to us on Zoom. But please people think of the profits of Big Pharma for they do this for us... BIG FUCKING LOL. Perhaps you can argue we might have more competition for ingredients if the 3rd world can make their own vaccines as well, but you have to be so FUCKING delusional to think this has nothing to do with profits, greed and boosters when we are only manufacturing in the West. And what is worse, we are only vaccinating pockets of the world and not going by age at all anyway. And not only that, Big Pharma didn't even put in the hard yards. Oxford should have just done a Whittle and given their research away to the WHO.

[Potemkin]

BoJo the Clown is a Tory, and this is what Tories believe. He "misspoke", but like a Freudian slip it revealed something.

[B0ycey]

BoJo the Clown is a Tory, and this is what Tories believe. He "misspoke", but like Freudian slip it revealed something.

Indeed. He was in a safe place full of likeminded people where he thought he was safe to say the truth and forgot about the transcripts for a few seconds.

The thing is everyone with half a brain knew it was true beforehand, but it takes a complete muppet to go out of the way to say it to the proles. Just ironic that Fuser brought it up recently and there is now no doubt that the OP is correct. No need to read about the sob story of taking big profit pharma IP would be bad for us. We now understand completely why the West is sidelining their technology. Greed, Profits and Capitalism.

[Heisenberg]

Just in case anyone for whatever reason didn't think this was about profits, greed and capitalism...

I know Kuenssberg doesn't even try to hide the fact she's a Tory PR mouthpiece at this point, but holy shit, her "analysis" is a bit much. "Guys, you have to trust me, Boris didn't mean it!"

One MP told me the prime minister's "greed" comments had been intended to poke fun at the chief whip, who was gobbling his cheese and pickle while sitting next to him during the meeting.

Believe it or not, the Conservative Party's boss of discipline, Mark Spencer, has been christened with the nickname "Big Farmer", like "Big Pharma" - the pharmaceutical companies.

And it's vehemently denied that the PM's comments were designed to stir up anything in the row with the EU.

Sources are adamant that Mr Johnson was not intending to be critical of the pharmaceutical companies in any way.

Imagine writing this and not immediately feeling like you need a shower.

[Atlantis]

@fuser, "fourth Reich" is it now? How can you sink that low?

I have given numerous examples of how it takes at least 8 months for companies that have the know-how, state of the art production facilities and experienced staff, an established supply chain, etc., to start producing the new vaccines that have never produced before.

For all other companies, it'll take years. By that time there'll be more than enough vaccines.

You have provided no facts and no arguments.

I could quote thousands of pages to prove my point, but since you are determined to ignore the obvious facts, there is no point in wasting my time.

@Heisenberg, @fuser, @Pants-of-dog, @AFAIK, et al., what I find scary is that your generation is so out of touch with the reality of productive work that you fail to understand the simplest things even if they are presented to you in concise and simple to understand terms.

As much as I disagree with the likes of Xi, Putin, Trump, etc., at least I can understand that they are defending the (presumed) interests of their nation and/or group, but you are not defending the interest of anybody. Your objective is purely destructive, for yourself, for society, for the environment, etc. Your populisms leads straight to a despotic dystopia that will dwarf the Trumpists and autocrats swept to power on the previous wave of anti-establishment populism.

Go ahead, it's your future you are destroying.

In the meantime India has stopped exporting vaccines to Covax which was funded by the rich countries to supply vaccines to poor countries.

Exclusive: India likely to delay COVAX vaccine supplies for March, April, says UNICEF

[Atlantis]

Oxford university developed a vaccine using public funds and was planning to license it to multiple manufacturers on a non-profit basis until Bill Gates personally intervened and threatened to withdraw all funding the entire university receives from his foundation. Astra-Zeneca provides final mile connections by performing the relatively simple task of conducting trials, manufacturing doses and deciding how to package and market the vaccine.

how did you manage to get Bill Gates into this?

@Heisenberg, @B0ycey, @Potemkin, @Pants-of-dog, @AFAIK, @fuser, the AstraZeneca shit show is a picture book example of what you are demanding.

I know that you don't have patience for the facts. Here is just the bare minimum:

- Oxford/Jenner in a long term partnership with Merck KGaA developed adenovirus vaccines and the Covid vaccine:

Merck KGaA hooks up with Jenner Institute on adenovirus-vector vaccine production

Merck Supports Jenner Institute to Reach First Milestone in Covid-19 Vaccine Manufacturing

- Two weeks after finalizing its Covid deal, Merck was booted by the UK government to be replaced by AstraZeneca, which is inexperience but under UK control.

- Oxford/AstraZeneca is promoted by the UK and the British media as the "Covid vaccine frontrunner" to sell more vaccine than any other.

- Having received the vaccine developed by others in addition to several billions of public funding from the US, the UK and the EU, AstraZeneca makes a non-profit pledge valid until June 2021, but allows licensees in India etc. to sell the vaccine at several times its cost.

- AstraZeneca oversells.

- AstraZeneca messes up the trials and lies to cover up.

- AstraZeneca has low efficacy but lies to cover up.

- AstraZeneca has to repeat US trials and still didn't get approval.

- AstraZeneca delays request for approval in Europe to hid production shortfalls.

- When it can't delay any longer, AstraZeneca admits massive supply shortages (19 million instead of 120 million to the EU in Q1).

- AstraZeneca lies about the contract.

- AstraZeneca lies about side-effects leading to cases of cerebral blood clotting and deaths in a number of countries.


The saga goes on, but this is exactly what happens when the vaccine nationalism of Governments interferes with production processes.

Under normal conditions, this vaccine would never have been approved, but since the Anglophone media has pushed the narrative of the "Oxford frontrunner" more than 3 billion doses have been sold worldwide and for most countries it is too late now to order an alternative vaccine.

British vaccine nationalism will kill thousands worldwide. South Africa has already given away its share of AstraZeneca because it's useless against the new variants. Switzerland is trying to get rid of its share of AstraZeneca, but those who believed in the British hype are screwed.

[fuser]

@Atlantis When did one became numerous example? And only when you were forced to reckon with your fuckup. So apparently when you said the best case scenario is 1-2 years, were you lying? Or you had no idea and you were making shit up as you went. I no longer have an interest in arguing with people like you who can't even own up to the basic fuckup they did. Also, it's not 8 months as explained by me but I am not surprised by someone like you who enjoys arguing in bad faith when got caught.

You have presented no facts whatsoever, all you had was stupid conjectures and counterfactuals which failed the test of actual reality as shown by me. But at least you are not persisting with your ridiculous cognitive dissonance where the profit motive is simultaneously good and our benevolent overlords will dole out it for free.

Seriously sort your shit out or else this is my last post to you. I have lost the will to argue with someone who is incapable of arguing in good faith.

[Heisenberg]

I know that you don't have patience for the facts. Here is just the bare minimum:

I see a lot of complaining about how Merck didn't get the contract, which is not exactly disavowing me of my suspicion that your spirited defence of big pharma has more to do with German profits than with some sort of high minded moral principle.

Having received the vaccine developed by others in addition to several billions of public funding from the US, the UK and the EU, AstraZeneca makes a non-profit pledge valid until June 2021, but allows licensees in India etc. to sell the vaccine at several times its cost.

This has literally has been my entire point in every discussion with you. The hilarious thing is you don't realise (or simply refuse to acknowledge) this is the big pharma model. AstraZeneca's covid vaccine is a microcosm of how the entire industry works. Merck and Bayer aren't somehow free of this purely because they are German.

[AFAIK]

Bill Gates was asked about his intervention into Oxford's distribution plans on reddit and discussed it in an interview available on youtube.

He has a long history of pressuring gov'ts to purchase patented vaccines rather than manufacture their own via his foundation and his commitment to patents during a pandemic will leave millions unvaccinated due to the bottleneck in production patent restrictions cause. This leaves not only them vulnerable to covid but puts all of us at risk of new mutations that could outmaneuver current vaccines and deny any hope of achieving immunity.

[Pants-of-dog]

@Heisenberg, @fuser, @Pants-of-dog, @AFAIK, et al., what I find scary is that your generation is so out of touch with the reality of productive work that you fail to understand the simplest things even if they are presented to you in concise and simple to understand terms.

Instead of implying that I am stupid or ignorant, you can provide evidence for your claims.

Specifically, please explain why people in developing countries do not have the know how to make vaccines.

[Atlantis]

@Pants-of-dog, @AFAIK, @fuser, @Heisenberg, what I said in my initial post is still valid. You haven't provided a singe valid argument in this whole discussion. I summed up my remarks to a forum on coronavirus which discusses mostly vaccines. Unlike you, at least these people have some knowledge about the Covid vaccine. There was uncharacteristically broad agreement with what I said because it corresponds exactly to the experience of vaccine specialists:

For companies without the know-how, the equipment and an established supply chain, it would take years to produce mRNA or viral vector vaccines in substantial quantities. By that time, there will be a glut of vaccines from existing producers and the newcomers can dump their products.

All the big pharma companies (Merck, Sanofi, GSK, Novartis, etc.) have failed to develop a Covid vaccine. Pfizer has a vaccine because of Biontech and J&J has a vaccine because of a small Dutch company Janssen has taken over a couple of years ago.

The companies that successfully developed a Covid vaccine are small innovative start-ups or Universities (Moderna, Biontech, Curevac, Jenner Institute, Novavax, etc.) which have pioneered the technology for years without making much money.

By depriving the innovators of their property, big pharma will be able to swallow them up for an apple and an egg while destroying the innovation that we need for future vaccines and/or cancer treatments.

Moreover, letting anybody without experience and the required quality control management produce the new vaccines could lead to unsafe vaccines and fuel the antivaxxers.

The proposal to waive patent rights has populistic appeal but won't produce more Covid vaccines in the short term and is bound to hamper desperately needed innovation.

The politicians have failed to stop the pandemic by public health measures. Now we rely on the scientists to save us from the pandemic with innovative vaccines. Don't let the politicians destroy the innovation.

Edit: most existing vaccine production capacity is already used to produce Covid vaccine. Polio and other vaccine production has already been halted to produce Covid vaccines. Where is the additional production capacity to come from? Backyard factories?

All of this stands and you haven't got a single argument.

Best case scenario now? Just stop, this is getting ridiculous. Also no it didn't take 8 months for Serum Institute when vaccine made by Oxford started rolling in UK , only two months later it was rolling in India too.

Best case scenarios 8 to 12 months:

AstraZeneca was handed the completely developed vaccine including initial trials in April 2020 in addition to several billion dollars to arrange for production. In May 2020, AstraZeneca started to prepare production with the Serum Institute and 25 other vaccine makers worldwide. Today, nearly 12 month later, the production problems are such that the company only delivered 19 million doses of the 120 million promised to the EU for Q1. The outlook for Q2 doesn't look better.

In May 2020, Moderna partnered with the Swiss Lonza for the production of its vaccine. Today, they produce limited amounts and hope to reach full production capacity by April, nearly 12 months later.

In March 2020, Biontech partnered with Pfizer in the US and Fosun in China for the production and marketing of its vaccine. The company is one of only three companies worldwide that has experience producing mRNA vaccines. Limited amounts of its Covid vaccine were produced in December and the companies hope to reach full production capacity in April 2021. A fully equipped and staffed Novartis factory was repurposed in September 2020. If all goes well, the plant will start shipping in April 2021, 8 months later.

The bioreactors, microfilters, the raw materials like the lipid nanoparticles and all the other materials available on the market already supply existing manufacturers. For any company without the experience, the know-how, the equipment and an established supply chain, it will take years.

Most vaccine makers worldwide (China, Russia, India, the West, the 3rd world) already contribute to Covid vaccine production while pausing other vaccines. Never in the history of mankind has a vaccine been developed so quickly and produced in such quantities so rapidly. By the end of the year, there will be a glut of Covid vaccines with 10 to 15 billion doses and some of the existing manufacturers will start closing their production lines long before newcomers are ready. Any newcomer that hasn't got a more innovative vaccine will make a loss.

You guys are ridiculous in your attempts to ignore the elephant in the room: the vaccine nationalism of the Anglo Imperialists. The US and the UK are the only countries that have prohibited the export of vaccines and/or materials needed to produce the vaccines. You are fueling a vaccine war that in old times would have quickly escalated into a shooting war. India has already joined the battle by halting its exports of vaccines; thereby depriving poor countries of the vaccine rich countries have bought for Covax in India.

The EU is continuing exporting with about 80 million doses to date. Russia and China also continue exporting vaccines.

Depriving the innovators of their property will allow corporate America to take over innovative start-ups in Europe and elsewhere on the cheap. The empire is bankrupt and needs to feed on the blood of its vassals.

Imperialists are bad, imperialist lackeys are worse, but the worst are the closet imperialists. Shame on you!

[Rich]

One problem though. Capitalism. Seems greed before health after all.

I'm sorry to be intellectually combative, but you leftist keep saying this drivel, over, and over and over again. You seem to think that if you just keep repeating it over and over and over again, everyone will forget that its a lie. Presumably even you would not call the primitive hill tribes of the New Guinea highlands capitalists. But they engaged in quite significant amounts of cannibalism. In the protein poor eco system, this was an effective but extremely selfish health care practice. So called capitalism did not invent selfishness, and its claimed abolition in Communist States did not get rid of it either.

We could share the IP and have global production ramped up big time in a month. But I think big pharma are looking long term now on boosters. So they aren't sharing anything to anyone. Big countries are now hiding behind contracts for their over supply of vaccines or even worse there is talk of holding back ingredients that really would mess the vaccine process up for everyone, even themselves. We should all be working together on this but we are seeing vaccination nationalism on many levels, and as such contracts and where production is are the key battlefields now. And whilst rich nations bicker amongst themselves, we seem to have lost sight that no one is safe until we are all vaccinated. I mean christ, new variants from Brazil and SA may even mean we are not protected from what we have. And we haven't even started the global vaccination program yet.

BIGGEST CLUSTERFUCK EVER!

The only way to get most western voters to back world wide vaccine equity, the only way to stop Vaccine Apartheid, is if western anti racists refuse to jump the queue for vaccines and start burning down the vaccine distribution centres that are implementing vaccine Apartheid.

[B0ycey]

So called capitalism did not invent selfishness, and its claimed abolition in Communist States did not get rid of it either.

There has never been a Communist state so...

But on your point about selfishness, it maybe a human trait but capitalism has made what is occurring possible. Everyone is hiding or arguing on the point of their contracts and nothing else matters. That is to say, let me have all the vaccines because I signed up for them. Give me, give me, give me - blah, blah, blah. We seem to have forgotten this is universal problem and a global effort. That is to say a vaccinated UK with an unvaccinated Europe means we are susceptible to new variants that come from Europe because of our international tradelines and as such it would undermine our current vaccination program. If we gave the IP to the WHO and made them responsible for the global vaccination program (so excluding enterprise from this completely), I assure you we would have more plants in other continents away from the West pumping these vaccines out and Covax would have their fair share of vaccines now.

Age before wealth.

The only way to get most western voters to back world wide vaccine equity, the only way to stop Vaccine Apartheid, is if western anti racists refuse to jump the queue for vaccines and start burning down the vaccine distribution centres that are implementing vaccine Apartheid.

I understand your point. And I agreed with your thread to some extent. But people should accept the vaccine if offered to them - despite the bollocks that is going on. The issue is the West should not have been holding vaccines to ransom. They should be exporting them out at the same rate they are using them. And if they want to open their economy up they should just make people aware of the risk, make them responsible for their own safety and health and also mitigate the risk with restrictions. Basically the things I have been calling for since last March.

[QatzelOk]

...you have to be so FUCKING delusional to think this has nothing to do with profits, greed and boosters when we are only manufacturing in the West. And what is worse, we are only vaccinating pockets of the world and not going by age at all anyway. And not only that, Big Pharma didn't even put in the hard yards.

Other Mass Media lies were used to start wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya - developing nations - and those wars have killed millions and stunted the development of a generation of humans. In developing nations.

So if we are currently experiencing Mass Media lies in order to make billions for Big Pharma, don't be surprised if millions die. Especially in far-off developing nations.

And don't forget who thinks it's worth it. "Very developed nations" within very developed nations.

As long as rich Western oligarchs (developed nations within developed nations) can escape death themselves, they really don't care how many people their lies and violence and rackets kill dead.

And this is another reason to doubt "their science." It's all backed up with lies and self-interest.

[Pants-of-dog]

@Atlantis

Stop mentioning me unless you are going to address my specific concerns about your argument.

[late]

In the past, we usually led international health efforts, like we did with Ebola.

It's something we simply have to do, and it's a no brainer that Biden knows this, he listens to the smart guys, unlike someone I could mention.

But the politics of this are deadly, until American sphincters relax. I wish it weren't the case, but
one of the results of Republicans having so many election advantages is that Dems can't afford to give them more opportunities for sleazy attacks than they have to.

We'll get there.

[AFAIK]

AZ has no experience producing vaccines and has decided to get it's feet wet in the middle of a pandemic. Placing a patent in the hands of a company with limited experience in this field is reckless. Give AZ a license along with other manufacturers in other countries and we'll see who the better manufacturer is.

[Atlantis]

@Atlantis

Stop mentioning me unless you are going to address my specific concerns about your argument.

You have no argument. What you say is simply silly. The vaccines are produced in developing countries.