COVIDS AND KARDANSHIANS
COVID is like the Kardashians. There are many of them. Each different. But each… a Kardashian.
Why oh why can we not have vaccines for the Kardashians? Then again, as in the case of COVID, vaccines won’t make the problem go awsay.
You see COVID19 is not just one virus: it is a whole bunch of sibling diseases, each awful in its own way — just like Kourtney, Kim, Khloé, and the rest: they share similar genetics is all.
The“19” in COVID19 stands for 2019 — WHO nomenclature for a coronavirus that emerged in 2019 and was identified in Wuhan in early 2020. There was and is no scientific consensus about the origins of this virus but it clearly mutated from some other member of a coronavirus family — most likely not in China — and variants were quickly discovered.
All existing vaccines — Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Sputnik V and the like — are based on creating antigens for the ’19 versions — which, unfortunately for you, have been mutating and differentiating themselves. The brand is still
“COVID’ but within the brand, there is a lot of choice.
Forget “herd immunity”. Didn’t work for the Kardashians did it?
COVID22?
Ipso facto, COVID19 became COVID20, then COVID21, with new mutants that. COVID22 is in the wings. No doubt trendier and — from a virus’ point of view — better, with super advanced features.
In the case of smallpox, we virtually eradicated the disease by universal vaccination, in the last half of the 20th Century. But the first vaccine was developed in 1796 by Jenner. In those days, only a few could get inoculated. Most of the world couldn’t . Kind of like COVID today,. In the 20the Century, smallpox killed about 300 million people!
You not develop herd immunity without vaccinating 70% of the world’s population with vaccines effective against all variants of a disease.
In this respect, the US represents a problem, not a solution with its essentially insular “We are the World” psychology which seems the only people that matter as Americans or Honorary Americans in other countries.
If we started today, we could be vaccinating everybody —but ti would require the US to start suspending patent rights on vaccines and cooperating internationally despite political difference with countries like Russia, China and Cuba. Even then, it could still take a decade or two.
The coronavirus we called COVID19 mutates slowly — but relentlessly — and we still know little about it and its sequelae, other than it damages the entire vascular system and has long term post-infection effects even with asymptomatic cases and the young, who are actually the majority of cases. Will it shorten the lifespan of an entire generation of younger people? Will today’s seniors outlive their juniors? That is a possibility, hopefully smaller rather than larger. Again, who knows?
GREED KILLS
Is money really the root of all evil? In the case of vaccines, it seems so.
But the US of A, if really a Gordon Gekko country. Here, greed is good.
American Big Pharma really doesn’t want COVID to go away — it is the biggest money maker since Viagra. For them, like the Kardashians it is a marketing and branding bonanza. They envisage creating new vaccines for each of the new COVIDs on a seasonal basis.
The newest, most contagious and most vaccine-resistant members of the COVID family all come from countries such as India, South Africa and Brazil, countries that have limited vaccination programs. Pfizer and other US drug companies are lobbying against suspension of patent rights and to persuade US State to put pressure on countries like Brazil and others not to use the very effective Sputnik V, which does offer local manufacturing rights, and is much cheaper and does not require extreme refrigeration. The bottom line in such cases, it’s not human life that matters— just dollars and cents. Because almost any vaccine, even the simple, less effective Chinese vaccines can limit the spread of the virus.
Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines are hugely expensive and use a new technology, mRNA — messenger RNA. According to Pfizer, the actual creators of this application of mRNA are Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman — but they are really just two “primaries” in a complicated developmental process — mostly funded by taxpayer money.
The vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, which are likely to be the first to win FDA approval, in particular rely heavily on two fundamental discoveries that emerged from federally funded research: the viral protein designed by Graham and his colleagues, and the concept of RNA modification, first developed by Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó at the University of Pennsylvania. In fact, Moderna’s founders in 2010 named the company after this concept: “Modified” + “RNA” = Moderna, according to co-founder Robert Langer.
“This is the people’s vaccine,” said corporate critic Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program. “Federal scientists helped invent it and taxpayers are funding its development. … It should belong to humanity.”
OK, so the taxpayer and the NIH invested a huge amount of time, effort and money in fostering mRNA technologies. Their payback?
Under a 1980 law, the NIH will obtain no money from the coronavirus vaccine patent.
Who does profit?
How much money will eventually go to the discoverers or their institutions isn’t clear. Any existing licensing agreements haven’t been publicized; patent disputes among some of the companies will likely last years. HHS’ big contracts with the vaccine companies are not transparent, and Freedom of Information Act requests have been slow-walked and heavily redacted, said Duke University law professor Arti Rai.
Gordon Gekko wins again.
FALLING BEHIIND
Greed slows down the ability to vaccine research to keep up with mutations, which is corporate research inevitably retrospective. — with corporations firewalling research,inhibiting collaboration among the international scientific community — all so that their executives can buy that new Ferrari or the summer home in the Hamptons.
Pfizer’s new vaccine will likely be based on COVID 20 and COVID21 (early) . And available only after COVID 21 (late) and COVID 22 appear.
HOPE?
Neoliberal greed focuses on short term returns and the vassal states of the American Imperium — Japan, Europe and a few others.
Two-thirds of the world’s population however are outside American influence. And much of it cannot afford mRNA vaccines.
These countries will buy Chinese, or Russian — or Cuban.
Compare the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and Sputnik. In terms of cost-performance, the Russian vaccine wins every time — at least three times cheaper, much safer, and equally effective.
Tiny Cuba, which devotes more than half of its national budget to healthcare, medical training and development of medicines is developing sub unit vaccines, which use peptides from existing viruses. The Cubans have a huge amount of experience in developing vaccines and are proceeding with immense caution and care, among other things using computer modeling to predict viral mutations. So their approach is forward looking. Pfizer wants steady income from vaccines — which means it doesn’t really want the disease to just go away, despite all the hoopla about AI predicting mutations. The Cubans want to get rid of the disease like smallpox or polio.
In addition, the Chinese are developing their own mRNA vaccines — and, of course, cooperating with the Cubans and Russians..
If the Chinese and the Cubans are successful, COVID might be defeated. Then, we will only have to deal with the Kardashians.
