PHARMA GIANTS ACCELERATE VACCINE TREADMILL
NEWS: WORLD NEWS
Booster COVID shots, experimental mRNA jabs for flu, malaria, cancer
GENEVA, Switzerland (ChurchMilitant.com) - Vaccine oligarchs, currently raking in billions from COVID-19 jabs, are, according to scientists, putting the world on a vaccine treadmill that could spin out of control with new highly virulent and transmissible variants.
Vaccine giants are flagging up annual and biannual booster shots in an appeal to investors, claiming the jabs are needed to combat variants and to supplement current vaccines, whose effectiveness may have expired.
The World Economic Forum — a driving force behind the "Great Reset" — is also promoting efforts to use experimental mRNA vaccine technology to develop vaccines for other diseases like influenza, malaria and cancer.
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla told CVS Health earlier in April that people would need a third dose of the COVID-19 shot within a year of the initial two-dose inoculation — followed by annual booster jabs.
"There are vaccines, like polio, that one dose is enough ... for adults. And there are vaccines, like flu, that you need every year. The COVID-19 virus looks more like the influenza virus than the polio virus," Bourla said.
The Pfizer chief — who is waging a losing war with rival vaccine-maker Moderna for a majority share of vaccine investors — said his vaccine offered "very high protection" for six months, but that "there would be likely need for a third dose somewhere between 6 and 12 months, and then, from there, there will be an annual vaccination."
Bourla also confirmed that Pfizer was making progress with vaccine trials on children ages 5 to 11, and the new school year could begin with children getting the jab.
"Clearly, I think we should be able to cover a middle and high school, and then the elementary is what I think we are looking for more," Bourla noted, stressing that he was "very optimistic" and "very bullish" about the experimental mRNA technologies.
In an appeal to investors in the same week, Moderna's chief commercial officer, Corinne M. Le Goff, revealed that her company's booster shots would become available to Americans later this year to protect against COVID variants.
Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel said that he hoped "this summer to get the vaccine authorized for a boost so that we can help people getting boosted before the fall."
Participants in a new trial have already begun receiving Moderna's new variant-specific COVID-19 vaccine that targets the B.1.351, the South African variant.
Earlier, Johnson & Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky told CNBC that annual COVID-19 shots would become necessary over the next several years because of variants.
"Unfortunately, as [the virus] spreads, it can also mutate," Gorsky observed. "Every time it mutates ... we can see another variant, another mutation that can have an impact on its ability to fend off antibodies or to have a different kind of response not only to a therapeutic but also to a vaccine."
A day after statements from the Pfizer and Moderna CEOs, David Kessler, chief science officer for President Joe Biden's COVID-19–response task force, announced the United States was preparing for a potential booster shot to be used between 9 to 12 months after the first vaccination.
But award-winning virologist Prof. Sucharit Bhakdi insisted that the "so-called vaccine is only a synthetic-mRNA, immune-system-response gene therapy that does not give you immunization against the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus."
Bhakdi warned:
All it might do is possibly help reduce the COVID-19 respiratory symptoms. You will still be able to contract and also spread the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus. But the cons of this synthetic mRNA drug are far worse than what the COVID-19 respiratory symptoms of the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus could ever do to the human body.
Imperial College scientist Dr. Rob Verkerk has also warned that staying on the "vaccine treadmill" by "trying to outsmart the virus when we should know better" will result in the virus continuing "to outsmart us if we maintain such intense selection pressure on it."
"If we put all our eggs in the basket of vaccines that target the very part of the virus that is most subject to mutation, we place a selection pressure on the virus that favors the development of immune-escape variants," the scientist explained.
There's "no guarantee of the outcomes" of the booster vaccines targeting viral variants, and "it's an experiment in which vast numbers of citizens have become unwitting participants," Verkerk observed.
Church Militant earlier reported on an apocalyptic alert issued by former Bill Gates–vaccine developer Dr. Geert Vanden Bossche predicting that "mass vaccination amidst a viral pandemic" will unleash an "irrepressible monster" and create a "global catastrophe without equal."
Meanwhile, investors are spotting a gold rush as pharmaceutical oligarchs cash in on COVID vaccines.
Pfizer's chief financial officer Frank D'Amelio told an investor conference hosted by Barclays in March that it was "becoming increasingly likely that an annual revaccination is going to take place," which the company saw as a "significant opportunity" for its COVID-19 vaccine once the market shifts from a "pandemic situation to an endemic situation."
D'Amelio explained the financial rewards that could be reaped "from these emerging variants that we're seeing." He added, "We see flu, at least currently, as potentially a significant opportunity for us."
"We've got what now? We've got the U.K. variant, the South Africa variant, the Brazilian variant. And so is there the possibility for more variants to emerge? I think the answer is, clearly, there is," he said.
D'Amelio told investors that Pfizer expects a "return after taxes" of around 25% on the $15 billion figure — around $3.75 billion.
Moderna expects to rake in $18.4 billion of sales from its coronavirus vaccine in 2021, and Johnson & Johnson was poised for sales of $10 billion this year — interrupted by the United States' pause on its vaccine, with CEO Alex Gorsky hoping to receive a $30 million pay package.
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