Who is the Bernie Madoff of Vaccines?
By Kim Stagliano
Vaccines are the new black. No, that's not right. Wait, let me think. Vaccines are the new green. There. That's better! Bloomberg (the business folks) reports candidly how vaccines have become "blockbusters" and provide a steady source of income not dependent on patent protection and the perfect customer known as "the government." Boy, get your AAP to pop a new vax onto the pediatric schedule and you're golden! So are your pockets. “Who would have thought that vaccines would be blockbusters?” Poussot asked at an investor meeting in New York yesterday before the deal was reported. “Five years ago, nobody believed that a vaccine could ever do that, but we have been able to do that with Prevnar.” Vaccines make money. A lot of it. Don't think for a second that the Paul Offit's of the world are solely interested in your health. Money = corruption. Bernie Madoff ring a bell?
From Bloomberg HERE.
...Wyeth Chief Executive Officer Bernard Poussot has focused the company’s research on vaccines, a dependable source of sales for drugmakers because they don’t lose patent protection and are often purchased by governments. Poussot turned Wyeth’s pneumonia vaccine Prevnar into its second best-selling product with $2.4 billion in 2007 revenue.
‘Blockbuster’ Vaccines
Wyeth and rival drugmakers are looking for acquisitions as $84 billion worth of their prescription products are scheduled to lose patent protection by 2013. Wyeth is the world’s fourth- richest drugmaker, with $14.1 billion in cash and short-term assets as of Sept. 30, according to data complied by Bloomberg.
Wyeth’s top-selling Effexor depression pill, with $3.8 billion in 2007 sales, will get generic competition next year. The company is trying to reduce its dependence on pharmaceuticals and plans to reap 75 percent of its revenue by 2012 from biotechnology medicines, vaccines, over-the-counter treatments and animal products, Poussot has said.
Kim Stagliano is Managing Editor of Age of Autism.
ALL VACCINES ARE UN-NECESSARY!
Everyone has the freedom to refuse vaccinations on religious or personal believes, sadly most people don't think for themselves and exercise that right!
Posted by: Cari | January 20, 2009 at 02:53 PM
Of course it's about MONEY and NOT your well being, sadly, most things are! Money is the root of all evil! Vaccines are full of toxic poisons and foreign crap your body fails to recognize, especially in the muscle where they shoot it and there for they do NOT work. I wish more people would wake up and actually think for them selves and do some research on what they let be put in their kids bodies instead of letting someone who cares only about getting your money and NOT your well being, make these decisions for you with out looking into it for your self AT ALL, then lead your kids like lambs to the slaughter! My kids, ages 11 and 8 are NOT vaccinated I am proud to say! Now a word on Madoff.
MADOFF SHOULD BE IN JAIL AND TRIED FOR THE MURDER OF RENE-THIERRY MAGON DE LA VILLEHUCHET. His life was ruined on epic proportions that most of the population can't wrap their puny brains around and they are so ignorant and small as to begrudges this man his success and have no empathy for his plight. He lost everything and could not go on with such a loss. I get it. I too was taken by a ponzi scheme in 2008 my brother in law was knowingly a part of.........yes, FAMILY! I only lost 35% of my net worth at $500,000. to witch It will be impossible to recover in my lifetime. My life and my kids childhood is forever hugely changed, and this will be very difficult to get over and move on! It was not greed that brought me to it, NO, it too offered 9-12% witch is NOT to good to be true! , it was good business, but with the wrong person! Financial scams of this proportion need to have much more severe punishment for the titanic carnage and number of lives they have ruined and forever changed and not the small slap on the wrists they have received in the past. Villehuchet killed himself over the criminal actions of Madoff STEALING his fortune, NO OTHER REASON and they where friends.
MADOFF SHOULD BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS DEATH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Cari | January 16, 2009 at 01:10 PM
Has anyone thought about petitioning Obama to have the "vaccine court" disbanded?
Think about it. Without this added protection, pharma would be forced to provide accurate testing results and put them on the spot to thousands of OPEN lawsuits! I bet you we would see a drastic reduction in the number of required vaccinations and some pharma going out of business. But they continue to hide behind the vaccine court and the AAP, CDC, FDA, etc and they win. It makes me sick...
Meanwhile, I have to call my bankruptcy attorney and then head off to my second job...
Posted by: Kevin | January 12, 2009 at 08:29 AM
And thanks to the Patriot Act and gov't "vaccine court", you can't even sue the manufacturer directly for damages. It's just a dream product, there is nothing else that is remotely close to the profit potential of vaccines. To top it off, the gov't actually does the marketing and, better still, impose "gentle" enforcement for its purchase by the masses. Who wouldn't want to make them and sell them?
Posted by: WE SHALL OVERCOME | January 09, 2009 at 11:38 AM
Criminal!!! No difference between them and the crack dealers on a street corner.
Posted by: Anita | January 09, 2009 at 07:41 AM
Can they make a vaccine for "greed"....and then give it to every Big Pharma exec? Add lots of mercury since it's clearly not harmful. >:^D
Posted by: Julie Swenson | January 08, 2009 at 05:02 PM
Ugh. I think I just threw up a little in my mouth.
Posted by: Kristen | January 08, 2009 at 03:35 PM
I heard a Canadian health official state in simple English that VACCINES CANNOT BE MANDATED BECAUSE THEY ARE AN INVASIVE PROCEDURE. I have to say that phrase gave me a jolt. We have all been conditioned to the word "vaccine"- but not to "invasive procedure" I think it meant more to me because of one child which was brought to my school- From age 6 months he had developed osteomyelitis in his thigh. The invasive organism was found to be a supposedly benign organism that lives on the skin. Skin bacteria goes inside a baby's thigh and infects the bone? I guess we all know how that happened. Now, three operations later he may never walk normally.
In my humble opinion, we need to take back some responsibility for our own health and reject invasive procedures of all kinds unless they have some reasonable chance of being of benefit. To Freedom of Speech, we need to add Freedom of Body.
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | January 08, 2009 at 02:49 PM
Imagine if all the pure-of-motive single issue advocacy groups that are focused on raising children into healthy adults merged memberships, while still retaining their primary identity and expertise for whatever their single issue, allowing the whole to put their collective muscle behind recommendations by the single issue groups.
Eg. members here could email/phone lawmakers for full funding for PROTECT Our Children Act of 2008,
http://www.house.gov/list/press/fl20_schultz/PROTECTmediapage.html
and members of protect.org and Surviving Parents Coalition could join parents here for specific actions.
The fact that ALL parents aren't fighting this fight together is only due to lack of information - it's everyone's fight.
Here's a cautionary article about the public good, big business and the banana. (I hope it's hyperbole)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/why-bananas-are-a-parable_b_156102.html
Why Bananas are a Parable For Our Times
Johann HariColumnist, London Independent
Posted January 7, 2009
Posted by: anonymous | January 08, 2009 at 01:32 PM
We need to recognize that vaccines long ago left the realm of Medical Miracles and are now simply another product to be manufactured, marketed and subject to P&L and ROI considerations. Along with this commercial status comes all the usual caveats. The manufacturers need to be challenged on safety and inspected constantly, and the science needs to be examined in much greater detail than has been allowed in the recent past. The FDA has fallen down on the job due to the dangerous environment of deregulation.
As evidenced by Paul Offit and his patents, vaccines are business ("...pharmaceutical companies wouldn't make our vaccine if the technology wasn't protected, so we patented our vaccine virues..." Autism's False Prophets, pg xiv (prologue)). The claims of life saving vaccines should no longer be accepted. Most vaccines are unnecessary.
Posted by: Harry Hofherr | January 08, 2009 at 12:08 PM
There must be some mistake here! Pharma companies only make vaccines out of the goodness of their hearts, to help humanity! They make so little profits that they need total liability protection to avoid going out of business!
(Lest there be any confusion, the above comment is sarcastic.)
Posted by: Twyla | January 08, 2009 at 12:03 PM
I also read in the Boston Globe yesterday that Merck is attempting to get FDA approval for use of Gardasil in boys, as the vaccine has not been as profitable as they hoped!!!! How scary is that????
Posted by: Lisa Thompson | January 08, 2009 at 11:07 AM
New word: Madoffit. As in "Rotateq-- whatcha think Merck and Offit madoffit?"
A while back I'd wondered if vaccines were a bit like a Ponzi scheme. The analogy is awkward but works in a sense. Early investors did pretty well: basic protection from certain diseases-- mostly protection from *fear* of certain diseases-- early in the game. Later investors, thinking the early set had done pretty well, went ahead and paid dearly to be part of a scheme that had spread out of all proportion, except that 1/150 or 1/67 or worse lost everything.
What's different, of course, is that most people didn't think they had any choice but to "invest" in vaccines.
What I hope happens, as has happened to Madoff, is that the whole scheme collapses when the truth comes out.
Posted by: Gatogorra | January 08, 2009 at 10:32 AM
Yes, there is no doubt that the pharma is banking on vaccines, pretty much as their salvation. This recent auditor's report advises them of this, if the didn't know:
http://www.pwc.com/extweb/pwcpublications.nsf/docid/91BF330647FFA402852572F2005ECC22
A financial report in November 2007 suggests that the industry was planning a four-fold increase in the childrens market in the coming decade (presumably irrespective of whether they could take it):
http://www.drugresearcher.com/Research-management/Kids-vaccine-market-set-to-quadruple
I think this puts Offit's 10,000 vaccines doctrine into perspective. However many new ones they bring in it is always a lot less than 10,000 - so no need to worry!
The message is that the pharma as we know it may still be doomed with the expansion into vaccines, but it is certainly doomed without it.
Posted by: John Stone | January 08, 2009 at 07:06 AM