panic because we're in a different situation to a year ago so what that scientist said seems to be at odds with what the head of the potentially profiteering pharmaceutical company said we don't need to panic here's the great luke shaw writing in jacobin with the emergence of yet another covidNUMBER_TOKEN variant there's no end to the global pandemic in sight it's bad news for everyone who hoped that NUMBER_TOKEN might bring about a return to some kind of normalcy or see the end of the kind of restrictions and punitive travel bans now being reintroduced it's decidedly good news on the other hand for a few big pharmaceutical companies who have already made a killing from vaccines and are set to reap big gains as variants like omicron continue to proliferate moderna and pfizer have added billions to their market capitalizations in a matter of days since news of omicron first broke amid an anticipated demand for booster shots and by extension huge profits NUMBER_TOKEN has already been a banner year for the various pharma companies who have successfully made their brand synonymous with the distribution of vaccines pfizer's profits jumping some NUMBER_TOKEN percent in the first three quarters of the year when compared to NUMBER_TOKEN and johnson johnson's some NUMBER_TOKEN what you see as well is fizer offering assurances to their shareholders that the year ahead will be profitable and positive based on the assumption that there will be continued uptake of these products that's the problem with having a private enterprise of any kind involved in something on this scale as lucrative business models go big pharma's pandemic strategy is about as good as it gets the mrna type vaccines produced by the likes of pfizer and moderna were only developed thanks to billions in public funded research and both companies paid well under the statutory u.s tax rate in the first half of this year so the research that led to mrna vaccines was funded by eu when it comes to paying taxes they're given tax breaks so the money can't go back to you when they make profits the profits go to them what did you see did you see the gravity and the magnetism of the situation that's another thing that makes you query what's going on with the encouragement protection and cooperation of some of the world's richest and most powerful states both have also overwhelmingly sold shots within wealthy countries successfully charging as much as NUMBER_TOKEN times the actual production cost resulting in doses five times more expensive than they need to be as an actual response to a global pandemic goes the big pharma-led vaccine rollout has brought a completely avoidable humanitarian crisis that's quite rightly called vaccine apartheid by its critics until vaccine production formulas are shared and doses made widely available at low cost we can expect a hugely profitable industry continuing to make a killing from it all do you know the question this leaves me with is if you're going to report on trevor noah getting some blow back because he made a joke about moderna potentially profiteering and the pursuit of profit having some impact on the way they behave and conduct their business why when it's reported on are you not given the accompanying set of facts oh we should probably tell you that this is how much money fizer have made this is how much money is being accrued around these policies this is
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