Also the rest of the world.
I smell another corporate vulture ready to peck our carcass for more money.
Which is more profitable? (A) Selling a vaccine that works or (B) Selling a vaccine that doesn’t work, saying “oops, sorry” and then selling a vaccine that does work later. Option B seems the US standard for getting paid twice for doing a job that should have been done right the first time.
Twice? Remember all those chronic conditions that patients have in the US. Big Pharma is all about treatments, not cures.
In the USA, the government is liable and pays through the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program. The idea being that no company would do vaccines otherwise due to liability.
As for the medical care for the uninsured, they will get reimbursed through the program after the fact assuming they successfully make a claim. Like most things insurance and legal, you will need resources to pursue your claim and if you don’t have those resources, then your unlike to be worth someone’s time to help as you don’t pose a threat.
Take a look here for more information:
https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html
sounds about right. cast your vote, hand your receipt to the nice man at the end of the line, if you voted republican you get one shot, and if you voted democrat you get shot shot.
two birds one stone really
Healthy people dont make good repeat customers.
Good to know what the laws are. I wonder about enforcement in this day and age.
Many of the anti vax people are Trump/Repub/Conservatives How is Trump going to convince those persons to take any vaccine? Will it have the Trump good housekeeping seal of approval??
“Bourla said Pfizer would have “approximately 100 million doses” manufactured this year globally and “a big chunk of that will come to the U.S.””
So the US only gets a big chunk, not the full 100 million manufactured. No idea what a big chunk is, but I suspect it isn’t close to 100 million.
They aren’t going to make 100 million doses and stop. As soon as any vaccine is approved manufacturing all around the world will kick into high gear. They’re just telling us how many doses they expect to have on hand on December 31.
Drug trials are generally free including any exams follow up care that are part of the trial and treatment for injuries received during the trial. Health insurance as a rule won’t pay for it because it isn’t approved medicine. If you participate in a trial for treating some illness they would generally only cover the parts that are experimental not the standard of care for your condition but that doesn’t really apply to vaccine trials.
For approved vaccines there is a federal insurance program and “vaccine court” that handles injuries due to vaccines although payouts are generally low especially if, as is almost always the case, it is determined that the vaccine was not manufactured incorrectly or otherwise defective. For instance with live attenuated vaccines can cause dangerous infections in a small fraction of those who receive them.
People like to think that once there’s a vaccine everything will be just fine, and that’s absurd.
In addition to producing enough vaccine, there needs to be a way to provide it to enough people in a timely fashion. The US has already demonstrated a piss-poor record of distributing medical supplies, and ensuring access to medical services. Do we seriously think that it will be possible to start vaccinating folks at a rate of over a million people a day? Because that’s what will be needed to even use up the imagined 100 million doses before 2021 if they were ready October 1st.
Moreover, people have to be willing to get vaccinated. Even here in the somewhat more sane country of Canada, there is a lot of vaccine hesitancy around a new Covid vaccine. The situation in the US is worse, with only 57% saying that they would get the vaccine.
And, given that they are projecting immunity rates from a vaccine to only be between 43 and 66% society will need the vast majority of folks to be vaccinated to lower the spread enough to protect even vaccinated people.
Basic timeframe just does not work. Phase 3 trials need to be huge, 10’s of thousands huge. As I understand it, this is a 2-dose vaccine, 1 month between doses. If all of those volunteers got their first dose today (not reality), they get the second mid-September. You then monitor for induction of antibodies and track for durability of those antibodies. Not to mention for new acquisition of infection and side effects. You’ve left yourself, what, 2 weeks for monitoring at ideal, impossible, best case? No, if this is presented as “safe and effective” in October, that is either serious wishful thinking or political bullshit. Maybe it is, maybe not, but at that point in time it will not be known. You just cannot “warp speed” this sort of data.
It’s not about Pfizer stopping at 100M doses, it the US Government not purchasing enough for the other 228.2 million citizens. What happens to them?
I think that just means the US has a contract for some percentage of the output. This year’s output is expected to be 100 million doses; next year the US will continue buying doses as they become available.
Considering impossibility of doing proper safety trials in promised timeframe, maybe this is better option?
Which is why I suspect it will be nursing homes first, esp low income nursing homes. Cheap lab rats.
Sadly you may be right about this. It will probably also be presented as “protecting the most vulnerable”.
Such unethical approach to clinical testing may backfire in many unexpected ways though, for example if vaccine will prove to be unsafe for people with weakened immune systems (while being safe for healthy young people).
They’ve been doing this for months. I wonder if this practice would mess up a vaccine trial (or if they’ve studied the effects and published findings):