Thread by @smittie61984

Interesting story in regards to vaccine development and operation warp speed. I was talking to our regulatory guy. Before this job he was a chemist for many different companies. Including a pharmaceutical company. He didn’t work in their pharmaceutical division but knew them.

Now to start this off. He’s a devout democrat. Hates Trump’s guts. Even has anti-Republican political cartoons in his office. However he’s a very ethical man. A former chemist (of 40 years) that lets facts dictate his reasoning.

He got his 1st dose last week and my 2nd dose this week. We got talking sciency shit. Techniques they used, chemistry behind them etc. Anyways, out of nowhere credited Trump with OWS helping develops the vaccine. No, not just the research funding.

Pfizer for example didn’t need the money. What they needed was a guarantee. When he left his company 20 years ago he said it cost roughly 1/2billion to get a new drug to market. Largest road block in his mind is the FDA.

Another aspect is some companies incentive their R&D chemists by promising 2% of the product sold for life once patented. That’s a huge motivator.

If companies like Pfizer and moderna had to share their secret sauce with people who just need to set up shop (and underbid bc no R&D), then not only does the pharmaceutical company lose interest (they have an obligation to shareholders to profit) the scientists do too.

Operation Warp Speed wasn’t just about initial funding. Brokering a $2billion deal means if they spent $1billion getting it to market they still profit. They can use that money to develope cures for other diseases (hello Ebola, you next).

Clearing way of FDA red tape another great aspect to OWS.

The beauty of Operation Warp Speed is it did one of the best things a president and congress can do. Get the fuck out of the way.

So sorry. I’m not going to let a bunch of pre-med dropout Ivy League inbred journalists try to pundit their way into “har har orange man do nothing me do smawt as I type on Macintosh book” for one of the few good things he did.

And when they confess our vaccine program is working but that Trump still killed 500,000 people. Let’s compare to Western Europe with similar populations.

Deaths:
Italy: 107k
France: 95k
Germany: 75k
England: 127k
Spain: 75k

Total deaths: 480k
Total population: 313million