Covid-19 Vaccines vs. The Bottom Line

Tim O’Brien is not a scientist. But he is a user of Covid-19 vaccines. He thinks they’re miracles, and the single biggest reason the pandemic wasn’t more devastating. But if that perspective makes you erupt, please relax: Crash Course is focusing today on the companies that make the vaccines, not the science. And Tim has a question: Have those amazing innovators – those life-savers – played fairly when it comes to sharing the financial spoils of their miracle drugs? And they were miracles. Just about nine months after the US went into lockdown in March 2020, the first vaccine jabs were available. There are a handful of marquee companies that won that race, Pfizer, BioNTech, Johnson & Johnson, and AstraZeneca among them. But today, for purposes of a lively discussion about innovation and avarice, Crash Course will focus on Moderna, which is a useful proxy for examining how a groundbreaking vaccine was unearthed – and who got control of its uses. To do that, Crash Course has invited Dr. Monica Gandhi, a leading virologist and epidemiologist who also teaches at the University of California San Francisco, to join our podcast.

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