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Shame they aren’t in the UK. I’d love to see how the Telegraph and Mail would handle that.
Funnily enough, there’s been hardly any fanfare at all for the developers of the Oxford vaccine. Would any of you even know who they were? 
I know that at least one of them was Irish. Not sure of the other nationalities (I think that the others were mostly, if not all, British). Were the developers of the BioNTech vaccine Germans of Turkish descent or first generation Turkish immigrants?
Turkish immigrants but I cant remember if they were 1st or 2nd generation. What they have developed is truly special though as the technology (vaccine type) has far wider applications.
While the UK hasn’t brought out the trumpets for any individuals as such (maybe Kate Bingham and that is right and fair enough) but AZ have had some amazing UK press.
Perhaps the UK didn’t want to look at individuals or perhaps AZ simply wanted to show themselves as a single entity (share the accolade across the entire company)? Probably the latter in my book but I would have loved to see how those press organisations would have twisted stuff if they were UK based. I guarantee they would do so without an ounce of shame.
Well, AZ had fuck all to do with the development of the vaccine. They’re the ones responsible for its manufacture. And, tbf, its press has at best been mixed!
The developers of the vaccine were the team at Oxford Uni - so they were entirely UK based so not sure your point stands on that one.
However, if you listen to the scientists involved they tell a story of global cooperation. I think the UK was the first to sequence the original virus and all this information (and other data) was widely shared around the world, in all directions (maybe not as freely from some countries, admittedly). But this really is a success story for nearly all the global scientific community.
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I dont doubt it is, nor do I want to belittle that achievement.
My point is purely about how certain press outlets would have reported that immigrants are largely responsible for creating a wonder drug. One that not only manages Covid infections but also opens the door on a vast array of other conditions ranging from autoimmune diseases to things like MS etc. To my eyes they are as plastic as your average Chelsea / City supporter.
One question: someone told me that in some countries (France for instance), life insurances refuse to pay any fee if you die as a consequence of taking the covid-jab. I found this strange, and as many in here have already taken their jab, I wonder if some asked their life insurances before that?
As far as I’m concerned, I’ll certainly ask my insurance before taking the jab when it will be my turn (not before this summer probably, as I’m in no particular risk group).
I haven’t seen that reported. I’d be very surprised if that was an outright refusal. Maybe they say that if you die within x days of having the vaccine that whether a payment is made under the policy will be reviewed rather than necessarily refusing to do so, point blank? Do you have a link to anything or is this just anecdotal?
I hadn’t thought of that to be honest.
If that were to happen I can see that being a real problem as I know my insurance would squirm every single way possible to get it related to my existing health issues.
Good thing, apart from a slightly sore arm I’m still chugging on.
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No no, I just heard it during a conversation with other people, and didn’t make any research so far on that.
But it’s maybe something to check for those who are in line for a jab in the next times.
Certainly from a US perspective, the main reason their nationality is mentioned is as a counter of Trump taking credit for the development of the vaccines.
Trump: “America is great again, I made the vaccines”
Pfizer: “We didnt take a penny of your money and the people who invented this are German Turks.”
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Hmmm that would be strange as if someone bought death insurance, it should be paid out upon…death generally…unless in unique situations like suicide within a year of starting the insurance etc…
In Singapore, most commercial insurance companies are in fact offering a one year free coverage to anyone who sign up against side effects of the vaccine. The government has their own program covering financial assistance for hospitalization due to vaccine and if death occurs due to vaccine, the government will payout $225,000. Whether how such incidents can be linked to the vaccine is of course…if it can be proven…
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That’s not fair. These days, almost all of the early phase intellectual work in Biotech is done by small start ups or academic groups who if they can get any product to the point of needing clinical trials will then get swept up by a major Pharma group. For most of them now, this is the business model. It does mean that the intellectual kudos often belongs elsewhere, but the lift those pharma companies do to get the product from the point where they come in to full approval and market use is enormous. It is so enormous these days that the relationship really is not just mutually beneficial, but is needed by these intellectual cores if they are ever going to get the IP to market.
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Interesting. I havent heard it, but often emergency use authorization comes with complete legal indemnity (not include coverage for fraud or scientific malpractice) for the biotech company if the product ends up being problematic. I wonder if its an extension of that principle?
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Yes, that’s fair but I guess the point was comparing who the equivalent people were to those at the point of developing the vaccine. As I understand it that expertise was in-house for BioNTech with Pfizer partnering after development to take the process through clinical trials, much like AZ did with Oxford.
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Yes. 100%
That is now the business model for big (even small) pharma - almost all their marketed IP comes from finding companies like BioNTech who have a product that needs to move on to clinical testing and need a company with the resources to do it for them. Really, the whole industry works off a start up model - do something cool, find someone to pay for your business losses and try to stay afloat until some mega company buys you.
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Yeah, that reminds me of something I read recently. I think it was about Moderna - basically they’d pretty much failed at everything that they’d tried to develop for nearly ten years but the technology was clearly of sufficient interest that despite huge losses every year they still got investment. I think their success with their mRNA covid vaccine was pretty much their last throw of the dice, near enough?
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Yeah, I was incredibly skeptical of them being chosen as the main focus of Operation Warp Speed and the group that Fauci’s team at NIH partnered with. They literally had a 0% success rate and a leadership that has acted more like pushers of penny stocks than genuine BioTech execs.
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It very much sounds like pharmas version of The Producers 
Shit, what do you mean we’ve managed to produce a successful vaccine? Now everyone’s going to want paying 
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