4 ms·

>The problem is that if you are being attacked, you will gladly allow people to make big profit if they save lives. Reminds me of the covid pandemic. Pfizer ma

>The problem is that if you are being attacked, you will gladly allow people to make big profit if they save lives. Reminds me of the covid pandemic. Pfizer made $100 billion last year

mrguyorama 3y ago
The agreement was $20 a vaccine, which IMO is perfectly fine. Making a profit from doing a necessary thing is very capitalism. Remember that shareholders were very upset they didn't make MORE profit.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Canada paid $175 per dose. https://www.oxfam.ca/news/vaccine-monopolies-make-cost-of-vaccinating-the-world-against-covid-at-least-5-times-more-expensive-than-it-could-be/ https://www.oxfam.ca/news/vaccine-monopolies-make-cost-of-va...
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    That's likely the price executives and shareholders would have wanted for the US. I wonder what leverage Trump held over Pfizer to get the $20 price. It's a genuine negotiating win from someone who considers just not paying your contractors to be good business and negotiating.
- hammock 3y ago
  Pfizer also got billions of dollars in free and taxpayer-funded advertising
  - ertian 3y ago
    Taxpayers got billions in life-saving government information, too. It wasn't for the benefit of Pfizer that the government ran those campaigns.
glogla 3y ago
They also saved millions of lives.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  [flagged]
- pastacacioepepe 3y ago
  And caused many unnecessary deaths by witholding the vaccine from less rich countries that couldn't outcompete richer ones, since the supply was very limited in the moments of most need. If they really wanted to save lives they should have liberalized the vaccine's production, but all they cared for was profit, the life saving just a coincidence.
  - glogla 3y ago
    Eh, it's not like you people would share SinoVac, even if it worked properly.
    - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
      > it's not like you people would share SinoVac Patently false[0]. Then yes, Chinese vaccines might have been less effective but it was still an obvious choice when the alternative was nothing. By the way, what do you mean by "you people"?? I'm European and your statement makes me think you have a fragile ego and a typical USamerican superiority complex. .0: https://archive.is/Ir6qt https://archive.is/Ir6qt
      - glogla 3y ago
        Your other comments mention living in China, and you also deny Uighur genocide, so thinking you're pro-CCP is not exactly a stretch, is it? CCP could buy Western vaccines, but they instead chose their own, even when they knew it is less effective, because their people's lives were less important to them than their ego.
threeseed 3y ago
Pfizer was making on average $50b revenue [1] before COVID. And the profits they generated by COVID could well save countless more lives given that their MRNA technology is successfully being applied to other use cases. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PFE/pfizer/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PFE/pfizer/revenue
- pfdietz 3y ago
  COVID vaccines are estimated to have saved 20 M lives world wide. In the US, the statistical value of a human life is $9 M, so (extending that to the global population, which is perhaps problematic) the value is $180 T. Making a measly $50 B is chump change in comparison.
  - VagueMag 3y ago
    Are the people who were saved by COVID vaccines never going to die from any other cause? I believe the $9M figure is actually just a reference to what the FAA considers a reasonable threshold for imposing a new expense on aircraft manufacturers and airlines in order to make flying safer?
    - pfdietz 3y ago
      So, saving a life has no value unless the person was already otherwise immortal? Ridiculous.
      - VagueMag 3y ago
        No that isn't what I said, and yes it would be just as ridiculous as attributing the same value to preventing a 90 year old nursing home patient from dying of an endemic respiratory virus as we do to preventing deaths in plane crashes.
        pfdietz 3y ago
        That's going to alter the number by less than an order of magnitude. The benefit still is massively larger than the cost.

>The problem is that if you are being attacked, you will gladly allow people to make big profit if they save lives. Reminds me of the covid pandemic. Pfizer made $100 billion last year

mrguyorama 3y ago

The agreement was $20 a vaccine, which IMO is perfectly fine. Making a profit from doing a necessary thing is very capitalism. Remember that shareholders were very upset they didn't make MORE profit.

ipaddr 3y ago
Canada paid $175 per dose. https://www.oxfam.ca/news/vaccine-monopolies-make-cost-of-vaccinating-the-world-against-covid-at-least-5-times-more-expensive-than-it-could-be/ https://www.oxfam.ca/news/vaccine-monopolies-make-cost-of-va...
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  That's likely the price executives and shareholders would have wanted for the US. I wonder what leverage Trump held over Pfizer to get the $20 price. It's a genuine negotiating win from someone who considers just not paying your contractors to be good business and negotiating.
hammock 3y ago
Pfizer also got billions of dollars in free and taxpayer-funded advertising
- ertian 3y ago
  Taxpayers got billions in life-saving government information, too. It wasn't for the benefit of Pfizer that the government ran those campaigns.

glogla 3y ago

They also saved millions of lives.

ipaddr 3y ago
[flagged]
pastacacioepepe 3y ago
And caused many unnecessary deaths by witholding the vaccine from less rich countries that couldn't outcompete richer ones, since the supply was very limited in the moments of most need. If they really wanted to save lives they should have liberalized the vaccine's production, but all they cared for was profit, the life saving just a coincidence.
- glogla 3y ago
  Eh, it's not like you people would share SinoVac, even if it worked properly.
  - pastacacioepepe 3y ago
    > it's not like you people would share SinoVac Patently false[0]. Then yes, Chinese vaccines might have been less effective but it was still an obvious choice when the alternative was nothing. By the way, what do you mean by "you people"?? I'm European and your statement makes me think you have a fragile ego and a typical USamerican superiority complex. .0: https://archive.is/Ir6qt https://archive.is/Ir6qt
    - glogla 3y ago
      Your other comments mention living in China, and you also deny Uighur genocide, so thinking you're pro-CCP is not exactly a stretch, is it? CCP could buy Western vaccines, but they instead chose their own, even when they knew it is less effective, because their people's lives were less important to them than their ego.

threeseed 3y ago

Pfizer was making on average $50b revenue [1] before COVID. And the profits they generated by COVID could well save countless more lives given that their MRNA technology is successfully being applied to other use cases. [1] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PFE/pfizer/revenue https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PFE/pfizer/revenue

pfdietz 3y ago
COVID vaccines are estimated to have saved 20 M lives world wide. In the US, the statistical value of a human life is $9 M, so (extending that to the global population, which is perhaps problematic) the value is $180 T. Making a measly $50 B is chump change in comparison.
- VagueMag 3y ago
  Are the people who were saved by COVID vaccines never going to die from any other cause? I believe the $9M figure is actually just a reference to what the FAA considers a reasonable threshold for imposing a new expense on aircraft manufacturers and airlines in order to make flying safer?
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    So, saving a life has no value unless the person was already otherwise immortal? Ridiculous.
    - VagueMag 3y ago
      No that isn't what I said, and yes it would be just as ridiculous as attributing the same value to preventing a 90 year old nursing home patient from dying of an endemic respiratory virus as we do to preventing deaths in plane crashes.
      - pfdietz 3y ago
        That's going to alter the number by less than an order of magnitude. The benefit still is massively larger than the cost.