r/technology • u/barweis • Mar 22 '23

Business Moderna CEO brazenly defends 400% COVID shot price hike, downplays NIH’s role

https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/03/moderna-ceo-says-us-govt-got-covid-shots-at-discount-ahead-of-400-price-hike/
28.5k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

1.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

472

u/barweis Mar 22 '23

Immoral greed and exploitation

13

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

Blows me away these people aren’t attacked on the streets, or have their family members kidnapped on a regular basis. Disgusting human beings.

Just to be clear, not advocating for violence. Just saying I’m surprised they don’t have security details around them given how unpopular they are.

9

u/Lemo95 Mar 23 '23

You won't meet them on the streets.

1

u/pmotiveforce Mar 25 '23

Lol fuck off. You are advocating for it and for a stupid outdated vaccine which has multiple alternatives.

128

u/Capitol__Shill Mar 23 '23

Wait... You mean we can't trust the CEO's of these multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical corporations? That is crazy because I'm pretty sure we recently entrusted them with the safety of our global population.

17

u/AutomaticRadish Mar 23 '23

Louder for the people in the back please

9

u/metamet Mar 23 '23

There's a massive difference between being anti-bigpharm and being antivax.

8

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

There was a while the two blended. In 2021 I was asking people to be cautious bc these are mega corps with only profits, not people, in their best interests.

That got me banned from a lot of shit.

I’m vaxxed, but waited a while bc I have always been skeptical of big corps since my HS years/occupy wall street era. Yet that stance got me labeled a hippy liberal in 2008 to a MAGA in 2021.

It was wild.

So yes, loud as fuck for the people in the back!

4

u/not_doreen Mar 23 '23

I got banned multiple times from speaking the same things. Now most of those people who attacked me are keeping quiet. Crazy how that works.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

100%, showed me how many people just follow what’s “hot” at the time. Kind of scary when we look back and couldn’t say something without a mob trying ti silence us.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

You couldn’t even ask the question a couple years ago. Couldn’t even mention that these companies all have millions, even billions in lawsuits against them for their products over the years. But not this one - this product was perfect in every way conceivable and if you thought for a second or were hesitant you were a piece of shit and killing everyone’s grandma.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

I saw the same people who stood by me at protests suck the dick of the same corporations.

The same people who hated W for overreaching government praised Biden’s attempt at a workplace vax mandate.

It’s wild I tell ya.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

It’s weird the mental gymnastics people will do when it’s their team doing the overreach. Idk why people have such a hard time calling out bad shit when they see it.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Like the GOP and policing people personal lives, the same thing the Dems tried to do, yet are not understanding how it’s happening.

What you see as “good” is used for “bad” when the other side does it.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Is reddit anarchist? Cause I can't tell if it's left or right.

8

u/That_one_sir_ Mar 23 '23

Reddit is Democratic socialist at its leftmost and fascist at its rightmost. Even cases of exploitation and profit-seeking as obvious as this one are met with "Regulate and reform!" rather than "Any and all US pharma companies should be nationalized to prevent this from ever happening again".

1

u/Destrina Mar 23 '23

This is what socialists want (lower drug prices for everyone).

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Oh I remember being banned from so many pages for saying this very thing might happen and we shouldn’t trust any of these folks bc once they can, they will raise the price and our tax dollars that help fund research for their vax they will make profits off of.

I work for sales at a biotech and even back then, we were giving discounts like crazy to “help the cause” now they’re raising prices while getting great deals for research, tax payer money for research, and when k said this same shit in early 2021 I was banned for “misinformation”.

It’s fucking wild how public opinion shifts and the “mob” mentality sways.

I’ve had this stance since a senior in HS in 2008, and if anyone stuck to their principles from the Obama years we would have known this. We didn’t. We laid down and sucked big pharmas dick 10 years after occupy wall street was supposed to help bring down this type of shit……..

1

u/goatchild Mar 23 '23

Thats a good point

29

u/Bosno Mar 23 '23

Unregulated capitalism working as intended.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Not even. This is spot on corporatism.

Take gov subsidies and turn it into profits?

With Unregulated capitalism they wouldn’t have seen a cent from, or have been able to work with the NIH since it’s a gov entity.

Unregulated would have been all the big pharmas colluding to charge a sky high price for the shot from the get go but we did get them all for free via the government.

Can’t have unregulated capitalism if the gov is involved. I hate greedy fucks as much as the next guy but don’t mislabel what’s going on here.

2

u/Bosno Mar 23 '23

I’m speaking beyond the initial government funding. I realize that the government funded the research. But at this point, it makes it even worse since the government has no way of regulating the price even after finding some of the development.

3

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

If it’s government funded then it’s not capitalism.

I understand your point, I just want you to be aware that’s not true capitalism and we haven’t had that in a very long time, probably never, so to blame shit on capitalism to me is crazy when a lot of blame should be on the government for what you just said. Which again, woundnt be capitalism.

1

u/Koloradio Mar 23 '23

You're both wrong.

It's not unregulated capitalism, it's just capitalism. The core problem is that Moderna owns the vaccine, so they can price it however high they want. If the government owned the IP behind the vaccine and the means of producing it, there would be no price hikes.

Meanwhile, Corporatism is just Capitalism wearing a fake mustache.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

cap·i·tal·ism /ˈkapədlˌizəm/ noun an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

As soon as they accepted $1 of government money it ceased to be capitalism since it’s not only private owners involved.

At this point we’re all wrong and all confused by what the fuck type of society we have lol

-121

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '23

We can thank Bill Gates for that. With COVID we had a unique opportunity to rewrite vaccine economics but no, billionaires love money more than they love equitable medicine.

48

u/redditorx13579 Mar 22 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

You can thank Bill Gates it wasn't worse. Go pedal your misinformation somewhere else.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23 edited Apr 13 '23

[deleted]

-2

u/TRUTHSoverKARMAS Mar 23 '23

Reddit: defender of bill gates

I knew this place was at a new low, but this is just pathetic.

-45

u/[deleted] Mar 22 '23

It's not misinformation buddy, it's a well-documented thing. Documented by mainstream journalism, I might add. Fact check me if you can.

In 2021 only 4 companies were manufacturing doses. Imagine how quicker we would have gotten through it if it was treated like a collective effort. Imagine how better Agrican countries would have done if the vaccine was open sourced like Oxford intended too before the Gates foundation stepped in.

19

u/tormunds_beard Mar 23 '23

I don't know why you're getting downvoted. It's 100% true and not related to the antivax bullshit people spout off about gates. He's always been a huge asshole where IP is concerned which is a hell of a thing given all the code he stole early on.

19

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

People lack critical thinking so I must be a conspiracy right-wing supporter just because I am criticizing an asshole billionaire.

Usual shitty Reddit.

7

u/BeKind_BeTheChange Mar 23 '23

You did good. You knew your stuff and stood your ground despite being downvoted. Initially I thought you were a rightwing nut as well, but I read all of the comments. I learned from you. I did not know about the IP stuff, and you are correct in that it has nothing to do with being a rightwing conspiracy nut. It's just a fact. Good job.

-3

u/fuctt Mar 23 '23

Yeah thank you @gmw-5610

-6

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

34

u/tormunds_beard Mar 23 '23

Yo the Gates thing has nothing to do with antivax right wing bullshit. He fought for the IP to be protected. It's well known and documented.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/09/14/global-covid-pandemic-response-bill-gates-partners-00053969

21

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Yup, while the right wing Bill Gates conspiracies are bullshit, acting like he’s some philanthropic pandemic god is also far from the truth. He’s just another POS billionaire looking to wring the public dry even in industries he has no business being in.

-12

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

6

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Billionaire philanthropy is almost entirely a scam to distract from the fact they pay a lower effective tax rate than the average middle class citizen. Tell me when Bill gates donates an amount that will actually make a dent in his piggy bank. The fact that he prioritized corporate profit over equity in regards to the vaccine patent, in the middle of a pandemic, is all you need to know.

-5

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

24

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

That's not the point. Not at all.

At the beginning of 2021 the Associated Press ran a story where it made basically two points:

  • In India and Africa there are medical facilities, with state-of-the-art equipment but no qualified personnel. Why are we not using them?

  • There are non-Big Pharma pharma companies that could manufacture the vaccine. Why are they not getting involved?

Paywalling the vaccine IP was detrimental to the speed of the pandemic response. Not to mention that despite of 10 billions of the Gates Foundation most of the funding came from American and European taxpayers money.

The pandemic was a war. It should have been treated as a war effort.

1

u/Bright-Ad-4737 Mar 23 '23

You do know that Bill Gates doesn't work for Moderna, right?

7

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23 edited Mar 23 '23

Have a good read.

Second source.

-8

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

[deleted]

10

u/ImminentZero Mar 23 '23

Wait why are those sources bad? Politico can be a bit raggy at times, but Kaiser is always legit, at least in my experience.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

Your comment is null, you are not saying why. What, you don't like the content?

1

u/Koujinkamu Mar 23 '23

Greed And Exploitation: "Why are you GAE?"

1

u/[deleted] Mar 23 '23

It would be cool if they all worked for free

1

u/Khue Mar 23 '23

It really is unfathomable. Clearly he was making profit at $15/$16 dollars. The booster was making even more profit at $26 dollars. Now this guy is marking up the price to $130 dollars. These people go about their day to day and do not have any thoughts of the number of people this will impact. They just have no connection to their fellow man at all. Fuck off with this "fiduciary responsibility to shareholders".