Politicians (and media and experts) follow the science follows the money follows the elite
In dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, including encouraging and mandating vaccines, politicians like President Biden assure us that they “follow the science”. Source. So do mainstream news outlets like CNN. Source. And so do experts like Dr Fauci. Source.
At this year’s World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos, the WEF chairman Klaus Schwab spoke of “cooperation” between government and business (8m30s), while the chairman and CEO of COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer Pfizer, Albert Bourla, spoke about the importance of money and shareholder profits in doing the scientific research (12m 30s). Source. As reported by the Guardian, the company “made nearly $37bn (£27bn) in sales from its Covid-19 vaccine last year”, while “overall revenues in 2021 doubled to $81.3bn, and it expects to make record revenues of $98bn to $102bn this year”. Source.
As reported in major science journal Nature, it has long been known that the science ‘follows the money’, with specific examples cited where pharmaceutical companies “had misrepresented safety and efficacy data”. The piece notes that numerous scientists believe “that when clinical science is hitched to the pharmaceutical industry’s dash for profits, the scientific method is undermined by marketing spin and cherry-picking of data”; “Academics still lend their names to ghost-written papers paid for by drug companies. The companies still pressure journals to publish the papers; on the basis of these, regulators approve drugs… the industry controls every aspect of this process”; and explains that one possible solution is to “take drug testing out of the hands of manufacturers”. Source.
It is also well known that the Food and Drug Administration receives a large proportion of its funding from the companies it regulates, like Pfizer. They themselves explain that around “46 percent, or $2.8 billion” of its budget “is paid for by industry user fees”, with the rest coming from the government. They further explain that “Human Drugs regulatory activities account for 33 percent of FDA’s budget; 65 percent of these activities are paid for by industry user fees.” Source. How much of the government funding is influenced by pharmaceutical lobbyists is not disclosed, though it is also known that pharmaceutical companies like Pfizer are amongst the largest lobbying spenders, which has caused some controversy. Source.
Also, as we reported earlier, the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers like Pfizer and mainstream news outlets like CNN have the same few asset managers amongst their top shareholders, asset managers that seem to effectively own major companies in every major industry. Our ‘owners of’ series is not yet finished but it is not speculation, it is logical necessity, to declare that some of the individual owners behind these asset managers must be among the richest and most powerful people in the world, ‘the elite’. Indeed, back in 2017 Oxfam reported that “Eight men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity”. Source. This may be even more striking now, with, as noted in our very first entry, the rich having become richer and the poor having become poorer during the pandemic.
Okay then.
Note: Is there a conflict of interest (or three) when the science is done by the profit-seeking companies making the products in question, who also happen to pay the regulators and the politicians to get their products out to the public, and who are effectively owned by the same people who also own the media organisations that directly and indirectly advertise their products? Should the populace - especially those who consider themselves to be more ‘left wing’, more Marxist, more sceptical about capitalism - be more wary about the big corporates and the wealthy elite?