• Privacy policy
  • T&C’s
  • About Us
    • FAQ
    • Meet the Team
  • Contact us
  • Guest Content
TLE ONLINE SHOP!
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Elevenses
  • Business
  • Food
  • Travel
  • Property
  • JOBS
  • All
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Sport
    • Tech/Auto
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
SUPPORT THE LONDON ECONOMIC
NEWSLETTER
  • TLE
  • News
  • Politics
  • Opinion
    • Elevenses
  • Business
  • Food
  • Travel
  • Property
  • JOBS
  • All
    • All Entertainment
    • Film
    • Sport
    • Tech/Auto
    • Lifestyle
      • Horoscopes
    • Lottery Results
      • Lotto
      • Thunderball
      • Set For Life
      • EuroMillions
No Result
View All Result
The London Economic
No Result
View All Result
Home Opinion

Greed is the cause of our crisis, not a solution

Contrary to the Prime Minister's beliefs, greed and capitalism actually inhibited vaccine development.

Guest Contributor by Guest Contributor
2021-03-25 14:25
in Opinion
FacebookTwitterLinkedinEmailWhatsapp

Boris Johnson has sparked controversy by attributing the life-saving vaccine roll-out to the forces of “greed” and “capitalism.”

In a Zoom call to the 1922 Committee of Conservative Backbenchers, the PM remarked: “The reason we have vaccine success is because of capitalism, because of greed my friends.”

“It was giant corporations that wanted to give good returns to shareholders.”

Suddenly realising the negative reaction these comments would ignite Johnson attempted to row back what he had said, repeatedly telling MPs to “forget I said that” and asking them to “remove that comment from your collective memory.”

Nick Dearden, director of the organisation Global Justice Now, said that despite Johnson’s attempts to expunge the record, “it remains an incredibly revealing remark which shows just how warped his understanding of this crisis is”.

‘Public sector played a role in every stage‘

It also overlooks the fact that market forces actually left us woefully unprepared for this emergency, with lethal consequences.

Awkwardly for Johnson no sooner had he closed his laptop on the Zoom call had his comments been flatly contradicted by a government report into the vaccine development program published on Wednesday.

Officials emphasised that the public sector ‘played a role in every stage of the Ox/AZ vaccine supply chain’, and that the absence of government intervention ‘at any stage of the process would have delayed the development of the vaccine.’

‘Development of the Ox/AZ vaccine inside a year was made possible by the combined efforts of scientists, venture capitalists, manufacturing experts, regulators, civil servants and volunteers.’

RelatedPosts

Elevenses: The Dreaded C Word

Finding Humanity in Travesty

Elevenses: The Thing About Wrexham’s Cinderella Story

Elevenses: The Kingdom of Rust

The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines have also been heavily dependent on government intervention. It was the US Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority that funded research into the unproven mRNA vaccine technology which has been the basis for both company’s vaccines.

Greed inhibited vaccine development

Contrary to Johnson’s comments, vaccine development has been inhibited by greed and self-interested market actors. In 2014 Professor Hill, the scientist in charge of Britain’s response to the Ebola outbreak publicly criticised the ‘market failure’ behind a lack of vaccines for epidemic diseases:

“Well who makes vaccines? Today commercial vaccine supply is monopolised by four or five mega-companies,” Professor Hill continued “The problem with that is, even if you got a way of making a vaccine, unless there’s a big market it’s not worth the while of the mega company… It’s a market failure.”

These words proved prescient. Back in 2016 researchers in Houston were trying to develop a vaccine against lethal strains of coronavirus, but were forced to discontinue said research due to lack of funding from pharmaceutical firms that considered the venture unprofitable.

Drugs that work too well

Indeed, despite the terror inspired by SARs and MERs outbreaks, the entire research budget for treating coronaviruses for 2016-2018 was $113 million, which is less than 1 per cent of what a single pharmaceutical firm earned from Viagra sales in 2016 alone.

Part of the reason that pharmaceutical corporations are typically wary of investing in drugs that prevent transmissible disease is that they work too well. The firm which holds the patent for a vaccine can only make a profit by selling one or two vaccines per patient. Conversely, a firm that holds a patent on a treatment for chronic or incurable disease will have bumper profits secured by the patients’ need for continuous medication.

The reason we were so unprepared for COVID-19 was because of greed. Rather than lionising greed and capitalism, our political elites should take note of the repeatedly demonstrated fact that cooperation and planning is our only hope for preventing future pandemics.

Related: David Cameron being investigated for breaking lobbying law he introduced

Content Protection by DMCA.com

Since you are here

Since you are here, we wanted to ask for your help.

Journalism in Britain is under threat. The government is becoming increasingly authoritarian and our media is run by a handful of billionaires, most of whom reside overseas and all of them have strong political allegiances and financial motivations.

Our mission is to hold the powerful to account. It is vital that free media is allowed to exist to expose hypocrisy, corruption, wrongdoing and abuse of power. But we can't do it without you.

If you can afford to contribute a small donation to the site it will help us to continue our work in the best interests of the public. We only ask you to donate what you can afford, with an option to cancel your subscription at any point.

To donate or subscribe to The London Economic, click here.

The TLE shop is also now open, with all profits going to supporting our work.

The shop can be found here.

You can also SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER .

Subscribe to our Newsletter

View our  Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions

Trending on TLE

  • All
  • trending

Elevenses: The Thing About Wrexham’s Cinderella Story

Elevenses: Exposing the Tories’ Deepfake Illegal Immigration Bill

Elevenses: Rishi’s Finest Hour

More from TLE

Exploring extra virgin in Córdoba, Spain’s olive oil capital

Park rangers are being mocked for putting up a notice of eviction – for a family of BADGERS

Swedemason releases hilarious new mashup of Jacob Rees-Mogg and Snoop Dogg

Restaurant Review: Hoppers, St Christopher’s Place

Touré absence could cost City title

Ian Blackford tells Tories: Boris Johnson is a liar

Britain First is raiding hotels to harass asylum seekers

Letter signed by opposition leaders accuses PM of showing contempt for Parliament

Media agency Ephiphany & Google first in UK to track in-store footfall via search activity

‘There’s no time to waste:’ Airbnb opens up housing for 20,000 Afghan refugees

JOBS

FIND MORE JOBS

About Us

TheLondonEconomic.com – Open, accessible and accountable news, sport, culture and lifestyle.

Read more

Contact

Editorial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Commercial enquiries, please contact: [email protected]

Address

The London Economic Newspaper Limited t/a TLE
Company number 09221879
International House,
24 Holborn Viaduct,
London EC1A 2BN,
United Kingdom

SUPPORT

We do not charge or put articles behind a paywall. If you can, please show your appreciation for our free content by donating whatever you think is fair to help keep TLE growing and support real, independent, investigative journalism.

DONATE & SUPPORT

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.




No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
  • Politics
  • Business
  • Sport
  • Entertainment
  • Lifestyle
  • Food
  • Travel
  • JOBS
  • More…
    • Elevenses
    • Opinion
    • Property
    • Tech & Auto
  • About Us
    • Meet the Team
    • Privacy policy
  • Contact us

© 2019 thelondoneconomic.com - TLE, International House, 24 Holborn Viaduct, London EC1A 2BN. All Rights Reserved.