Follow the Money

This is the story of how conflicts of interest have compromised the integrity of our government’s public health policies, favoring special interests instead of the best interest of Americans.  

When the pandemic first washed over us, it knocked many of us off our feet.  Policymakers shot-gunned solutions in reaction to terrifying mortality rates, especially among the elderly.  We needed treatments, ventilators, hospital beds, and vaccines; we needed them fast.  We were in no position to bargain.  

This chaos created opportunity.  Handsome rewards were promised to those offering remedies for the unthinkable.  Quoting Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., “Nothing sells vaccine like panic.”  This has been especially true of Pfizer, the manufacturer of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine.  

Who pays for Pfizer vaccines?  Not the vaccine recipients.  At least not directly.  According to the Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Government pays Pfizer $24 for every vaccine administered against an estimated cost of $1.20, a profit of at least $22 per shot.  Every first dose, every second dose, every third dose to the immunocompromised, every booster, every accidental dose to someone previously vaccinated—all generate $22 in profit.  OSHA mandates, CMS mandates, and reductions in minimum vaccination and booster ages increase the target market, sales, and profits.

The result is a windfall for Pfizer.  According to its third quarter SEC filings, Pfizer’s YTD revenue as of October 3 2021, soared to $57.7 billion, nearly doubling its $30.2 billion revenue for the same period in 2020.  At the same time, Pfizer’s net income more than doubled, up 224% from $8.3 billion to $18.6 billion through the third quarters of these years, working out to $3.32 per share of common stock.  

The same government that pays for the vaccines regulates the product and mandates its use.  This creates a conflict of interest on its face.  Furthermore, no one involved in assuring the “safety and efficacy” of vaccines has disclosed a potential conflict and recused themselves from participation in the debate, acceptance, and approval of Pfizer’s vaccines and its reimbursement system.  Are we to believe that not one has a financial interest in Pfizer?  

If we disrupt their money machine, companies like Pfizer threaten us with the loss of wonder drugs.  Research and development costs money, they tell us, and many drugs never make it to market.  Pills have a high price because pharmaceutical companies must recoup these costs.  Don’t mess with us, they say, or you will lose the gumball machines that dispense the new and improved drugs keeping you alive and happy.  

Husain Lalani, MD, MPH, a proponent of universal vaccination to eradicate SARS-CoV-2, together with colleagues Jerry Avorn, MD, and Aaron Kesselheim, MD, published a recent article in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics which demonstrates that COVID-19 vaccines are the result of “decades-long taxpayer investments” prior to the pandemic.  Then we funded the clinical trials necessary to bring product to market. According to Dr. Lalani, “in total, over $18 billion dollars of US public funds have been invested in 6 [COVID-19] vaccine candidates.”  You and I have paid for these vaccines, so why don’t we own them, instead of Pfizer?

Under the guise of altruism, the pharmaceutical industry is robbing the public treasury while gouging its customers.  Government subsidies invalidate the industry’s justification for high drug prices.  It’s never been about your life and happiness; it’s always been about their bottom line.  The cost is spread across the population, like a tax.  The benefit is concentrated in a few companies and their shareholders, like special interest fraud.

The essence of capitalism is to assume risk.  Capitalists naturally seek to minimize risks and costs but using power and influence to offload them to the public is corruption.  It is easy to see.  Just follow the money.

Many see the pandemic as an opportunity to accumulate wealth and consolidate political power.  We need to love our freedoms more than we fear the loss of wonder drugs, more than we fear a germ.  Americans must stop bickering and start figuring out how to fight greed and evil.  The first step is to eliminate corruption.  Let’s start with the corruption we can see.