By Tony Cartalucci Global Research, August 21, 2020
Before even debating the efficacy, safety, and necessity of different vaccines – one must get past the fact that the most corrupt corporations on Earth hold a monopoly over their development (and the profits made from them).
Forbes in their article, “9 Pharmaceutical Companies Racing For A COVID-19 Vaccine,” would provide a list of the current front-runners racing to develop the West’s first COVID-19 vaccine.
The article would claim:
With more than 6 million confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide and the number increasing daily, the race for a Covid-19 vaccine is moving at full speed.
This and many other articles are supposed to protray the gravity of the COVID-19 crisis and the desperate need to develop a vaccine to fight it with.
Under “Operation Warp Speed” the Department of Health and Human Services has allocated around $10 billion to feed into giant multinational multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical corporations – each with a track record of bribery, corruption, market manipulation, and price gouging.
The US Department of Health and Human Services itself is headed by Alex Azar – former president of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly – which was accused of manipulating the price of insulin in the US, and fined for doing so in Mexico – Politico reported in its article, “Trump’s HHS secretary nominee boosted drug prices while at Eli Lilly.”
If COVID-19 was truly the danger we are told it is – why has the Western World placed its trust in the most corrupt corporations on Earth? Why do Western governments draw department and ministry heads from these corporations? Why is the development of these vaccines being done in secret by for-profit corporations through the use of proprietary technology rather than as an exercise in open, international collaboration?
Upon seeing examples of the colossal corruption carried out by each of these “Operation Warp Speed” candidates it will become clear that their collective appearance at the trough of $10 billion in taxpayer dollars to develop a COVID-19 “vaccine” is the capstone upon a long, sordid history of profiting at the expense of the general population’s money and even their health.
The Insidious Six
Six of the eight corporations shown in a table in Forbes’ article are Western pharmaceutical giants. They include:
- Johnson and Johnson;
- Pfizer;
- Moderna;
- GSK;
- AstraZeneca and;
- Novavax.
The other two companies included are Chinese companies – thus Westerners are extremely unlikely to receive anything developed by them.
All six Western pharmaceutical corporations have backgrounds of impropriety.
Four of the six are convicted – not accused of or suspected of – but convicted of criminality ranging from falsifying research, the bribing of doctors, regulators, legislatures, and even law enforcement officials, to the marketing of drugs to children for conditions not approved of by regulators, and false advertising – just to mention a few.
One company is accused of recently manipulating the stock market as part of its inclusion in “Operation Warp Speed.” The last company simply takes US government money by the billions and produces nothing.
A normal person would not likely trust a convicted criminal – recently released from prison – walking up to their front door and injecting an unknown substance into their body claiming it protects them from some sort of disease or condition.
Yet that is precisely what the West does when they roll up their sleeves to be injected by substances created by pharmaceutical corporations repeatedly convicted of the worst possible crimes such businesses could commit.
The difference of course is a criminal walking up to you on the street raises immediate red flags.
A criminal corporation hiding behind bribed doctors with clean white coats, certificates affixed to their walls, professional, clean, and well-light examination rooms, stamps of approval from government regulators, and all the other facades of modern Western healthcare – lulls the public into a false sense of trust and safety these corporations and their products do not deserve.
Johnson and Johnson: Covering Up (and still selling) Cancer-Causing Products
This US-based Fortune 500 multinational multi-billion dollar corporation made headlines after lawsuits filed against it claiming its baby powder products caused cancer won repeatedly in US courts.
NPR in its article, “Johnson & Johnson Stops Selling Talc-Based Baby Powder In U.S. And Canada,” would note that Johnson and Johnson had denied all wrongdoing and even cited various reports “proving” its baby powder was “safe.”
Yet the NPR article noted (emphasis added):
Separate investigations by Reuters and The New York Times in December 2018 revealed documents showing Johnson & Johnson fretted for decades that small amounts of asbestos lurked in its baby powder.
“From at least 1971 to the early 2000s, the company’s raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos, and that company executives, mine managers, scientists, doctors and lawyers fretted over the problem and how to address it whilefailing to disclose it to regulators or the public,” Reuters reported.
NPR would conclude the article by noting (emphasis added):
Both types of the powder will continue to be sold in other countries around the world“where there is significantly higher consumer demand for the product.”
Johnson & Johnson is one of a handful of companies working with the National Institutes of Health to develop potential treatment options for the coronavirus pandemic and a vaccine for COVID-19.
Despite courts ruling against Johnson and Johnson and its own internal documents admitting the dangers of its product – it continues to sell it overseas for the simple fact it faces less likelihood of litigation for causing harm to human health.
And as if creating a product that causes cancer and still selling it overseas despite pulling it from shelves in America isn’t bad enough – Johnson and Johnson has been convicted by the US Security Exchange Commission (SEC) of wide scale systemic bribery.
From the US SEC’s official website itself – in a report titled, “SEC Charges Johnson & Johnson With Foreign Bribery,” it states (emphasis added):
The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged Johnson and Johnson (J&J) with violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) by bribing public doctors in several European countries and paying kickbacks to Iraq to illegally obtain business.
The SEC statement also noted:
The SEC alleges that since at least 1998, subsidiaries of the New Brunswick, N.J.-based pharmaceutical, consumer product, and medical device company paid bribes to public doctors in Greece who selected J&J surgical implants, public doctors and hospital administrators in Poland who awarded contracts to J&J, and public doctors in Romania to prescribe J&J pharmaceutical products. J&J subsidiaries also paid kickbacks to Iraq to obtain 19 contracts under the United Nations Oil for Food Program.
Johnson and Johnson – one of the Western big-pharma corporations pursuing a COVID-19 vaccine they would like to eventually inject into your body – is a corporation convicted of bribing governments and doctors to promote their products and award them contracts whether these products work or not, are safe or not, or are even necessary in the first place or not.
Some might point out that this SEC case was from 2011 – but reports as recent as 2019 indicate that Johnson and Johnson is still under investigation for exactly the same practices.
Reuters in its article, “Exclusive: FBI targets Johnson & Johnson, Siemens, GE, Philips in Brazil graft case – sources,” would note:
The U.S. FBI is investigating corporate giants Johnson & Johnson, Siemens AG, General Electric Co and Philips for allegedly paying kickbacks as part of a scheme involving medical equipment sales in Brazil, two Brazilian investigators have told Reuters.
Brazilian prosecutors suspect the companies channeled illegal payoffs to government officials to secure contracts with public health programs across the South American country over the past two decades.
Johnson and Johnson – repeat offenders – guilty of bribing the very people who are supposed to scrutinize the safety, efficacy, and even necessity of healthcare products – is “racing” to develop a COVID-19 vaccine it wants to jab you with.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ official website, Johnson and Johnson has already received $456 million in funds from the US government for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Pfizer: Bribing Government Regulators for Drug Approval
The Washington Post in a 2012 article titled, “Pfizer agrees to pay $60M to settle foreign bribery case,” would report (emphasis added):
Pfizer Inc. agreed Tuesday to pay $60 million to settle charges alleging that some of its foreign subsidiaries bribed doctors and health-care officials in order to gain regulatory approval for the company’s drugs and boost sales in those countries.
The Washington Post article specifically noted that one Pfizer product it bribed doctors to use came as an “injection” but both the Washington Post and the official SEC complaint (22 pages, PDF) refused to name the products involved in a bribery racket operating in over a dozen countries around the globe from Eastern Europe to East Asia.
More recently, FiercePharma would report in its 2018 article, “Pfizer joins DOJ probe into claims pharma bribes funded Iraqi terrorists,”
The Justice Department’s inquiries stem from a lawsuit, filed last fall, in which veterans and their families accused Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Roche and Johnson & Johnson of paying bribes to win business from the Iraqi ministry of health at a time when the ministry was controlled by terrorists.
Of course, Johnson and Johnson and AstraZeneca are both also currently vying with Pfizer for a COVID-19 vaccine with the help of billions of US taxpayer dollars.
Pfizer – like Johnson and Johnson – has an established pattern of bribing the very people in government and national healthcare sectors charged with ensuring the safety, efficacy, and even necessity of products made by companies like Pfizer. Instead, Pfizer is paying them off and despite being caught doing so repeatedly, face what is essentially a “slap on the wrist” and allowed to not only continue doing business – but continue its business of bribery.
According to FoxNews in their article, “Pfizer to get $2B for coronavirus vaccine under ‘Operation Warp Speed’,” Pfizer will receive up to $1.95 billion in funds from the US government for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Moderna: Masters of Stock Manipulation
Moderna has yet to make any products to bribe doctors and regulators to push onto the public, but hopes its candidate for a COVID-19 vaccine could be the first.
And already it is accused of manipulating the stock market amid its efforts to do so.
CBS News in its article, “Watchdog urges SEC to investigate vaccine maker Moderna,” would report:
…concerns center on insider trading activity at Moderna after the company last month announced positive results in Phase 1 trials of its coronavirus vaccine. The news pushed up the company’s stock price 30% to an all-time high of $87. In the days following the announcement, Moderna’s CEO, other executives and funds controlled by the chairman of its board sold about $90 million worth of company shares.
The article also noted:
“Evidence suggests that Moderna and at least two of its officers, possibly among others, may have improperly exploited coronavirus fears to boost the company’s value, as well as their own bank accounts,” Herrig [head of Accountable.us] wrote.
Moderna has become the centerpiece of the US government’s “Operation Warp Speed” headed by Moderna’s own Moncef Slaoui – who joined Moderna’s board of directors as recently as 2017 and only left Moderna in May 2020 – a month after “Operation Warp Speed” was announced and after divesting with Moderna stock sky-high from suspected market manipulations.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ official website, Moderna has already received $483 million in funds from the US government for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK): Guilty of Largest Human Healthcare Fraud in Human History
Moncef Slaoui of market-manipulating Moderna had previously worked at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for thirty years, leaving the pharmaceutical giant in 2017 – the same year he joined Moderna. He still – to this day – according to the Washington Post serves as “chairman of Galvani, a bioelectronics company owned by GSK.”
GSK is perhaps the worst offender of bribery – or at least – the most frequently caught and exposed.
It is convicted – not accused of or suspected of – but convicted of the largest human healthcare fraud cases in human history.
This includes the largest human healthcare fraud in US history – where it seeks to develop and distribute its COVID-19 vaccine with the help of hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars.
Reuters in a 2012 article titled, “GlaxoSmithKline settles healthcare fraud case for $3 billion,” would report (emphasis added):
GlaxoSmithKline Plc agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges and pay $3 billion to settle what government officials on Monday described as the largest case of healthcare fraud in U.S. history.
The details of the scandal are appalling. Reuters would explain (emphasis added):
GSK targeted the antidepressant Paxil to patients under age 18 when it was approved for adults only, and it pushed the drug Wellbutrin for uses it was not approved for, including weight loss and treatment of sexual dysfunction, according to an investigation led by the U.S. Justice Department.
The company went to extreme lengths to promote the drugs, such as distributing a misleading medical journal article and providing doctors with meals and spa treatments that amounted to illegal kickbacks, prosecutors said.
In a third instance, GSK failed to give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration safety dataabout its diabetes drug Avandia, in violation of U.S. law, prosecutors said.
Targeting children with medication approved of for adults only. Promoting drugs with misleading “medical journal” articles and bribing doctors to promote their products. Failing to provide the US FDA safety data about its drugs.
This is what GSK was convicted of and fined for by the US government itself.
GSK is now involved in developing a COVID-19 vaccine with US government funding.
Who is to say GSK will refrain from bribing doctors and rigging medical journals this time? Who is to say GSK will provide all of its safety data to the US FDA this time? How did it manage to qualify as a reliable partner for this supposedly crucial operation in the first place?
GSK’s abuses are not confined to North America either.
The BBC in its 2014 article, “GlaxoSmithKline fined $490m by China for bribery,” would report:
China has fined UK pharmaceuticals firm GlaxoSmithKline $490m (£297m) after a court found it guilty of bribery.The record penalty follows allegations the drug giant paid out bribes to doctors and hospitals in order to have their products promoted.
According to the Financial Times in their article, “GSK admits to 2001 China bribery scandal,” this corruption and bribery extended to GSK’s vaccine unit specifically.
Another Financial Times article, “Police accuse GlaxoSmithKline China head of ‘ordering’ bribes,” would point out that GSK even attempted to bribe police to end their investigation.
Financial Times would report (emphasis added):
According to the official, the company’s China subsidiary set up several internal units with code names like “operation Great Wall” and “operation soaring dragon” specifically to bribe doctors and government officials.
He also said that in 2012, as the company came under scrutiny from the authorities, Mr Reilly and two Chinese subordinates established a “crisis management team” to bribe law enforcement officers from China’s industrial and commercial administration. The goal was to convince them to stop an investigation into the company’s illegal activity, the official said.
GSK’s bribery racket appears to extend into Europe as well. The London Guardian in its article, “GlaxoSmithKline accused of bribing doctors in Poland,” would report:
Poland’s fraud squad, the central anti-corruption bureau, on Monday said 13 people had been charged in connection with allegations of doctors being bribed to promote GSK’s asthma drug Seretide.
Not only is GSK running a global-spanning bribery racket in virtually every country it does business – its vaccine unit specifically was involved.
Despite literally setting records for human healthcare fraud on multiple continents – GSK remains in business and even for those leaving the company – like Moderna’s Moncef Slaoui now heading the US government’s “Operation Warp Speed” – corruption follows and is clearly the foundation upon which big-pharma is built and a process we can clearly see already rots “Operation Warp Speed” inside and out.
According to Business Insider’s article, “The coronavirus vaccine from Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline will receive up to $2.1 billion from Operation Warp Speed,” GSK will receive up to $2.1 billion in funds from the US government for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
AstraZeneca: Bribing Doctors, Officials, Even Terrorists
AstraZeneca – another corporation developing its own candidate for a COVID-19 vaccine with US government funding – is guilty – not suspected of or accused of – but guilty of bribery in multiple countries and has been fined by the US government itself.
Reuters in its article, “AstraZeneca to pay $5.52 million to resolve SEC foreign bribery case,” would report:
U.S. regulators said on Tuesday that AstraZeneca Plc (AZN.L) will pay $5.52 million to resolve a foreign bribery probe into improper payments by its sales and marketing staff to state-employed healthcare officials in China and Russia.
The article further explained (emphasis added):
Sales and marketing staff in those countries as far back as 2005 provided gifts, conference support, travel, cash and other benefits to the state-employed healthcare providers to buy or prescribe the company’s products, the SEC said.
The company’s Chinese subsidiary also paid healthcare providers speaker fees, sometimes for “totally fabricated” engagements, and in 2008, paid local officials to get reductions or dismissals of proposed financial sanctions it faced, the SEC said.
More recently, FiercePharma in a 2018 article titled, “Justice Department probes claims that AstraZeneca bribed Iraqi terrorists to win contracts,” would report (emphasis added):
More than 100 veterans last year filed a bombshell lawsuit against several drugmakers, alleging they financed terrorism by paying bribes to win contracts with the Iraqi Ministry of Health.Now, the Department of Justice is investigating similar claims, according to an AstraZeneca securities filing that says it’s part of the probe.
As mentioned before – AstraZeneca was being probed alongside two other pharmaceutical corporations working on US government-funded COVID-19 vaccines including Johnson and Johnson and Pfizer.
According to the US Department of Health and Human Services’ official website, AstraZeneca has already received $1.2 billion in funds from the US government for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Novavax: Billions Go In, Nothing Comes Out
Novavax – like Moderna – has made nothing in its over 30 year history. On its own webpage under “Our Pipeline” it has 9 vaccines under development – none of which have been brought to market.
These include “vaccines” for SARS, MERS, Ebola, the seasonal flu, and most recently COVID-19.
For all of these “pipelines” it has received millions, sometimes billions in government funding.
Despite a 30 year history of taking huge sums of money and producing nothing – it has received the largest amount so far of US government funding for current COVID-19 vaccine research and development – according to ABC News in its article, “Novavax receives highest funding to develop COVID-19 vaccine.”
The article claims:
According to Stanley Erck, CEO of Novavax, the company was selected to be part of the government’s Operation Warp Speed program because of its prior experience with two related coronavirus vaccines (SARS and MERS), as well as other infectious diseases such as Ebola.
Yet Novavax never actually developed a vaccine for any of these diseases. No vaccine – by any company – has been developed for SARS or MERS. An Ebola vaccine was developed, but by Canada’s publicly-funded National Microbiology Laboratory – not Novavax.
Novavax – whose board of directors and management team have been drawn from the worst, most corrupt pharmaceutical giants on Earth including the above mentioned Pfizer, GSK, and AstraZeneca appears to simply make profits by taking huge government grants at the height of perceived health crises, with revelations of its failure to produce anything coming only after public interest has long faded.
Reuters in its article, “Exclusive: Novavax executives could get big payday even if vaccine fails,” would explain:
One of the leading U.S. firms developing a coronavirus vaccine, Novavax Inc (NVAX.O), has awarded executives stock options that could pay out tens of millions of dollars even if its efforts fail.Novavax CEO Stanley Erck and three other executives would earn the options, worth $101 million at Tuesday’s closing stock price, if the company’s vaccine candidate enters a mid-stage clinical trial – regardless of its eventual success, according to a company filing. The incentive plan, which has not been previously reported, allows the executives to start exercising the options a year after Novavax starts the so-called Phase 2 trial, as it expects to do soon.
According to Financial Times in its article, “Novavax signs $1.6bn deal for virus vaccine funding from US,” Novavax has already received $1.6 billion in funds from the US government for its COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
If COVID-19 and Vaccines are Important – Why Entrust Them to Corrupt Entities?
Literally every company involved in “Operation Warp Speed,” along with those leading the US Department of Health and Human Services overseeing the program itself are guilty of decades of abuses, corruption, bribery, price gouging, lying about the efficacy, safety, and necessity of their products, paying others to lie about it, manipulating or entirely sidestepping regulatory agencies, rules, regulations, and laws – and when caught – bribing law enforcement agencies to end their investigations.
This is who Americans and Europeans want developing their COVID-19 vaccine? Or any vaccine for that matter?
Will the COVID-19 vaccine really be effective and safe?
Or will it be deemed “effective and safe” because medical journals, doctors, and regulators were bribed to say it is?
Is it even really necessary?
Or is it necessary because – as we see – it has already made big-pharma $10 billion with executives standing to make millions of dollars personally even if what they provide the public doesn’t work, isn’t safe, or isn’t even eventually produced at all.
The best, realistic outcome is that big-pharma steals $10 billion from US taxpayers, produces nothing, and leaves yet another trail of corruption and deceit for the history books.
The worst possible outcome will be if these criminal corporations actually develop a “vaccine” and their representatives in the US government force the public to take it – a vaccine that could contain anything and possibly inflict harm on the public’s health.
Such a COVID-19 “vaccine” would be produced by companies we know with certainty have covered up deadly products they sold to the public for decades – and still sell overseas to this day.
These are companies that have been convicted of lying about safety and efficacy and of withholding safety data from regulators. These are companies that deliberately pushed pharmaceuticals on even children knowing full well there was no regulatory approval to do so.
These are also companies that have been convicted of bribing regulators to approve their products.
Regulators approve these products whether they are safe or not – whether they are effective or not – whether they are even necessary or not – simply because they were paid to do so.
If a COVID-19 vaccine – or any vaccine for that matter – was truly a matter of preserving human health – their research, development, distribution, and funding would be done publicly, openly, transparently, and in collaboration with the entire world.
Instead, the very worst of American and European industry is not only involved – they hold a monopoly over the process – one that extends deeply into a media that reports on their crimes after being committed, and then conveniently omitted when its time to panic and deceive the public and make billions more once again. It also extends deeply into the Western political system where “elected representatives” do the industry’s bidding – not the bidding of the people of the world subjected to big-pharma’s abuses.
It is a reality that – until it changes – should be at the center of the “vaccine debate.” It doesn’t matter if vaccines work or not if the people making them are criminals who don’t care, lie about whether they are safe and effective or not, and make more profits the sicker and more panicked the population becomes.
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This article was originally published on Land Destroyer Report.
Tony Cartalucci is a frequent contributor to Global Research.