This is incredibly low. The most pessimistic prediction I had heard was 5 percent. This is a deep failure by any standard. That is precisely why the numbers are not being advertised. The average person has stopped buying what they are selling.
Initially, the excuse was that drug stores faced logistical problems. Then it was widely suggested that they were too expensive. For a few weeks, such diversions dominated the messaging. But in the end, the reality is here: people just don’t want them.
Now we see why the shot pushers were so intent on mandates wherever and however they could. The makers always claimed that the shots were safe and effective but that bypasses a more fundamental question: were they necessary?
The demographics of risk of COVID have been published and unchanged since February 2020, fully a year before the shots became generally available. By that time, millions were already exposed and gained immunity without the shots.
From the beginning, the claims for what they called a vaccine were wildly exaggerated and obviously so. Vast numbers of people had figured this out by the time they were rolled out.
The Biden administration was advised early on that ending the pandemic required 70 percent uptake, which is consistent with the pharmaceutical target for herd immunity. But that goal presumes an absence of natural immunity, which the crowd in charge at the time pretended did not exist or that there was not enough evidence to rely upon it.
When that number failed to stop the spread, the Biden White House kept expanding the goal, from 70 percent to 85 percent to 90 percent to everyone. Finally, they said that the whole reason COVID still existed was due to the unvaccinated, which most every expert knew was false but the needs of industry at that point overrode all science.
The main competitor to the two mRNA shots of Pfizer and Moderna was Johnson & Johnson, which was a more traditional vaccine and required only one shot. But that was withdrawn briefly for safety concerns by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2021, which wrecked its market share, leaving only two giants to scoop up the fiduciary rewards of public panic.
Keep in mind that these vaccines were developed by tax dollars. The companies enjoyed patent protection. Briefly, the Biden administration toyed with the idea of giving away the formulas so that anyone could make them but that idea faded quickly following panicked industry protests. Then they relied on mandates, which is a form of conscription. Further, they enjoyed indemnification against harms. Finally, they are publicly listed companies so could reap the whirlwind of profits, and they did.
After three years, where does the stock price of Pfizer and Moderna stand? Moderna has lost 74 percent of value in two years, while Pfizer has lost 46 percent. No question that the time to have sold these stocks was two years ago. The layoffs have already started and their valuation will likely crawl back to what it was two years ago.
There is a temptation to cheer when big shots bite the dust, and I share that sense. And yet, nothing about a fallen stock price undoes the tremendously terrible history of these shots: the expense, the coercion, the harms, and the wealth transfer associated with them.
All of which is to say: they will likely get away with the whole thing.
I often think back to what we knew about coronaviruses from the first days. Such viruses are mostly unstable, prone to constant mutation. They are not candidates for viable vaccines. At best, pharmaceuticals can chase down the last variant and provide some therapeutic benefit. They are completely unlike polio, measles, rubella, or smallpox, which are stable viruses against which there have been sterilizing vaccines for a very long time.
Again, this is not wisdom we recently discovered. It was widely known, and has been for many decades. You could find it in any medical textbook. You could even learn about it in 9th grade biology class a generation or two ago.
For some strange reason, by the time 2020 came around, enough people had forgotten or never learned that bad actors were able to manipulate the public into believing that a magic shot could make a respiratory virus go away. There was never any chance that we could vaccinate our way out of this one. Never.
Meanwhile, the FDA had a strong team focused on vaccines, which resigned when they saw what was coming with the first booster and how the manufacturers were essentially buying their way into the approval process. Those who remain, it is widely acknowledged, are entirely in the pay of the industry.
Will they get away with all of this? Certainly the public and the financial markets are now in a punishing mode. It’s about time. As for larger accountability, it’s unclear. We had investigations going and some focus on Capitol Hill but all that might be shelved now in light of the huge attention being paid to war in the Middle East. War tends to do this: put everything else on the back burner.
No question that we urgently need reforms, particularly with the problem of regulatory capture and indemnification against harms. The 1986 act (National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act [NCVIA]) that protects vaccine makers against harms needs an urgent repeal. That will bring an element of reality back to these markets.
And measures need to be taken to restore integrity and science at the FDA. That’s just the beginning.
At the start of this entire mess, thinking and writing not as an expert but as a literate human being, I pretty much assumed that the vaccine would be a great distraction from the need for good protocols for dealing with the sick. It turned out to be far worse than a distraction. Many people have been injured and many have died. The entire fiasco has massively raised public doubt about all vaccines, pharmaceuticals, medical services, and public health generally.
What this means is that even without serious efforts at reform, we could see de facto refusal of the public to go along anymore. Public health in this country and around the world squandered decades of goodwill and built up reputational capital on an unworkable project that was never necessary for the vast majority. Now we are stuck with the consequences.
Given all this, a lowered stock valuation for the main two vaccine distributors is small consolation.
Jeffrey A. Tucker is Founder and President of the Brownstone Institute and the author of many thousands of articles in the scholarly and popular press and ten books in 5 languages, most recently Liberty or Lockdown.
Related Items:
Jeffrey A.Tucker’s interview with David Leis on Leaders on the Frontier can be seen here.
His testimony at the National Citizens Inquiry (Winnipeg) may be viewed here.
