InChrist
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Here is an interesting article from Kaiser Health News. Should there be concern that Pfizer has too much influence in determining public health policies? What do you think?
“Its success in developing covid medicines has given the drugmaker unusual weight in determining U.S. health policy. Based on internal research, the company’s executives have frequently announced the next stage in the fight against the pandemic before government officials have had time to study the issue, annoying many experts in the medical field and leaving some patients unsure whom to trust.”
“Pfizer’s 2021 revenue was $81.3 billion, roughly double its revenue in 2020, when its top sellers were a pneumonia vaccine, the cancer drug Ibrance, and the fibromyalgia treatment Lyrica, which had gone off-patent.
Now its mRNA vaccine holds 70% of the U.S. and European markets. And its antiviral Paxlovid is the pill of choice to treat early symptoms of covid. This year, the company expects to rake in more than $50 billion in global revenue from the two medications alone.“
“Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a developer of a vaccine for an intestinal virus, wondered, “Where’s the evidence you are at risk of serious disease when confronted with covid if you are vaccinated and under 50?”
“Policies on booster recommendations for different groups are complex and shifting, Offit said, but the CDC, rather than Bourla and Pfizer, should be making them.”
“We’re being pushed along,” he said. “The pharmaceutical companies are acting like public health agencies.”
How Pfizer Won the Pandemic, Reaping Outsize Profit and Influence
“Its success in developing covid medicines has given the drugmaker unusual weight in determining U.S. health policy. Based on internal research, the company’s executives have frequently announced the next stage in the fight against the pandemic before government officials have had time to study the issue, annoying many experts in the medical field and leaving some patients unsure whom to trust.”
“Pfizer’s 2021 revenue was $81.3 billion, roughly double its revenue in 2020, when its top sellers were a pneumonia vaccine, the cancer drug Ibrance, and the fibromyalgia treatment Lyrica, which had gone off-patent.
Now its mRNA vaccine holds 70% of the U.S. and European markets. And its antiviral Paxlovid is the pill of choice to treat early symptoms of covid. This year, the company expects to rake in more than $50 billion in global revenue from the two medications alone.“
“Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a developer of a vaccine for an intestinal virus, wondered, “Where’s the evidence you are at risk of serious disease when confronted with covid if you are vaccinated and under 50?”
“Policies on booster recommendations for different groups are complex and shifting, Offit said, but the CDC, rather than Bourla and Pfizer, should be making them.”
“We’re being pushed along,” he said. “The pharmaceutical companies are acting like public health agencies.”
How Pfizer Won the Pandemic, Reaping Outsize Profit and Influence