Yeah, right, it's a huge disincentive indeed. If anyone took the time to read my old posts about Big Pharma he or she would quickly learn that I've been very critical of the pharmaceutical industry for a long time for reasons most of us are all too familiar with. (It will hardly escape anyone who reads my long prolix HN posts in criticism of Purdue Pharma L.P., the Sackler family and the regulators who let the opioid crisis happen that I'm incensed and furious about what happened—especially so given the 150+ years of modern medical experience with these drugs not to mention the presence of both longstanding national and international laws that are in place to control their use.)

Thus you'd expect me to be one of the last to stand up for AstraZeneca, however as I see it the company took an extremely rare approach for a pharmaceutical manufacturer in that it took a philanthropic approach to its vaccine development by foregoing considerable profit and deliberately refraining from price gouging when the world was in a state of crisis. Leaving matters of past bad behavior of the pharmaceutical industry's aside, when those within a section of the industry adopt the moral high ground and act accordingly then they deserve just praise and encouragement, not criticism. Anyone with a modicum of nous ought to be fully cognizant of the fact that with the pandemic raging it's not business as usual and that one ought not to expect everything about the vaccines rollout to run as smoothly as everyone would have liked.

Frankly, I'm appalled at the various politicians, especially those from the EU, who've strongly criticised AstraZeneca over vaccine issues and delays in its delivery. To me, these people are nothing less than nasty hypocritical shits and they deserve to be told so. Moreover, I'm also critical of those such as the British Government for not being more outspoken and thus immediately putting the kibosh on those unjust EU criticisms. AstraZeneca and other pharmaceutical company will not forget this criticism. In the light of what's happened come the next time no AstraZeneca or any other CEO will be so magnanimous. One should not expect it of them given that they are likely to be licked in the face from two sides—their shareholders and ill-informed politicians.

It seems to me that some of the world has gone into brat mode; not only do these criticisers have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement but also they've lost sight of what's really happened over the past fifteen or so months. Back at the beginning of 2020, the pandemic was raging across the world, people were dying on mass, and there was little certainty when a vaccine would be available if at all. Nevertheless, researchers in Oxford and AstraZeneca along with those at Pfizer–BioNTech, Moderna and others responded magnificently and did so in record time. Minor issues aside, this is a truly wonderful achievement and we ought not to lose sight of the fact.

If anyone is to be criticised then it ought to fall on certain politicians (I note however, that some have responded to the crisis very well). I hasten to point out that it was politicians and other influential people who failed to take seriously the many clear warnings from decades-old scientific evidence about forthcoming pandemics. If they had then the world would have been much better prepared for this pandemic (for starters, there would have been sufficient masks to hand for everyone at the beginning of the crisis, and in all likelihood research into coronavirus would, by now, have been much further advanced).

Furthermore, the overly strident criticism over the safety of AstraZeneca's vaccine in the light of a small number of seemingly allergic/overly active antibody reactions is unwarranted as it is way out of proportion to the overall utilitarian benefit that this vaccine will bring to the world. Those who've been critical have in all likelihood caused much more harm than good, as their actions will result in more people refusing to be vaccinated. In the end, far more people are likely to die from not being vaccinated than from any reaction to the vaccine. (It's been long well known that all vaccines—or for that matter, medical procedures of any kind—carry with them some small risk, and with most vaccines made these days it is very small indeed.)

The hypocrisy of hypercritical politicians is even more damning when we consider that only months ago they were urging regulators to approve vaccines post-haste even though only limited trials had been carried out. It's appalling that significant numbers of those charged with the governance of our countries have so little conception about the development to production cycle and problems that are likely to be encountered in manufacturing. It ought to be damned obvious why rushed development and production doesn't always run smoothly or exactly to plan.

I feel very strongly about this because I well remember the polio epidemic when I was a kid—there were kids in my class left with callipers on their legs; with them, they could just barely walk and without them, they couldn’t walk at all. At the time it sent shivers down my back just to think about it. So when Dr Salk's miracle arrived, it was a welcome blessing, especially so for our parents. We accepted with a little fatalism that things weren't perfect and thus there was little complaint from knowledge of fact that early on during the initial phase of production some batches of vaccine suffered quality control problems that caused them to contain active viruses and consequently some kids died tragically from vaccine-induced polio. By my time, we had been informed the QA problem had been fixed and we accepted the fact.

I can vividly recall standing in a long line at school waiting to be vaccinated. By today's standards, this was a risky business as we kids were immunized with a common shared needle that was only changed after a dozen or so kids had been injected. (There was a bidding war and an exchange of coins between us, the highest bidders paying to move to what we guessed would be the best position in the queue come one's turn, that being first after the needle had been changed for new. This wasn't for reasons of health but because a new needle was sharper and thus it hurt less).

There were precious few complaints from us kids about the injection; we were all clearly aware that the alternative was far worse.

The whingeing and bellyaching should stop. It's time those doing so took stock of the fact that the vast majority of people in these pharmaceutical companies as well as those in the medical profession are doing their darnedest to get vaccines out to us as quickly as is possible. If nothing else, the whingers should at least take into account the demoralizing effects their intemperate words have had on hardworking researchers and other workers at Oxford and AstraZeneca. A little humanity would go a long way.