Pfizer needs a boost - enter Mpox.

[Skids]

Ah yes, how predictable. Almost 3 years after reaching its hysteria driven peak share price of almost US$60, pfizer shares plummeted to their lowest level in 2 decades @ US$25 in April this year.

Not wanting to lose any money... how can we fix that they ask. Enter the dreaded Mpox (formerly know as monkey pox, but of course, that was racist).

Pfizer shares jumped almost 2% last night as the mickey mouse WHO, fully utilising the new international health regulations took effect, granting the WHO the ability to take "immediate international action." .... funny that.

It will be interesting to see how the media blows this story into the next great pandemic. Especially considering how, according to the Australian Government department of health and aged care, mild the symptoms are and how low the risk of spread is.

Vaccines are US$100 a pop... of course they are.

https://www.health.gov.au/diseases/monkeypox-mpox

Mpox illness is usually mild and people typically recover within a few weeks.
Signs and symptoms of mpox infection can include:

a distinctive rash, lesions (bumps that turn into pimples, blisters or sores, and may burst to form ulcers or scabs)
swollen lymph nodes
fever
headache
muscle aches
joint pain
back pain
chills
exhaustion

Transmission
A person with mpox is thought to be infectious from the time they develop any symptoms until all scabs have healed and a fresh layer of skin has formed. This may take several weeks.

Transmission between people can occur through:

close contact with rashes, blisters or sores on the skin
body fluids, including respiratory droplets from coughing or sneezing
contaminated objects such as linen and towels.

Transmission through respiratory droplets (for example coughing or sneezing) is less common and usually only happens if there is prolonged face-to-face contact.

[Durka]

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
After the covid experience it's going to be very hard to take the next pandemic seriously.

[Culprit]

Gotta love a new Conspiracy theory.

[Durka]

Gotta love a new Conspiracy theory.

I was referring to drug companies and how they took advantage of stupid governments all around the world, not to the WHO.
It's naive to trust Pfizer.
Last time I checked, which was a couple of years ago, it had been fined in excess of $US 11 billion since 2000 in the USA alone,for misleading conduct. That includes publishing false drug trial results, saying they had tested a drug when they had not, and saying other things about their drugs that were false.

[Culprit]

The Big Pharma Conspiracy is straight out of the Cooker playbook.

[Durka]

The Big Pharma Conspiracy is straight out of the Cooker playbook.

Strange, non related, naive response.
After the evidence given by Pfizer executives in the court case in The Hague, Pfizer is already being sued by at least 5 different governments who allege that Pfizer lied to them to trick them into signing the covid indemnity agreements.That may be why the share prices have dropped.
PS. You seem like a nice person, so I will let you in on a fantastic early opportunity to buy some shares in a bridge in Sydney. I am sure you are the sort of person that would jump at that.

[Culprit]

They are being sued by the Republican-held states of Texas, Utah, Kansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, not Countries. You are just peddling cooker misinformation to suit your agenda. Keep Cooking.

[Durka]

They are being sued by the Republican-held states of Texas, Utah, Kansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, not Countries. You are just peddling cooker misinformation to suit your agenda. Keep Cooking.

My agenda?
Tell me, I am interested to know what my agenda is, apart from pointing out that Pfizer is dodgy.
I was vaccinated 3 times and did not attend or support any anti vax protests.
Where is the misinformation? "You are just peddling cooker misinformation to suit your agenda. Keep Cooking" is a cop out when you have nothing sensible to say.
Yes, they are states. I did not say that they were countries.It does not matter what the political affiliation of the states are - they will either win, or lose, regardless of that.
Pfizer is also being sued by GlaxoSmithKline in two separate cases, alleging that Pfizer copied their patents in relation to RSV and mRNA vaccines.
What would your psychological condition be called, to support the ethics of a company that is so dodgy? I don't know what the answer to that question would be, but you can judge the quality of a person by the company they keep.Wouldn't want to be the first person at the bar in a shout with you.

[Culprit]

You stated "Governments" to give the perception of something bigger than the US States that opposed everything to do with COVID. Pfizer is suing Poland but alas that's not mentioned. You stick to the line you want to run with and I will call out what I see as misinformation.

[Durka]

You stated "Governments" to give the perception of something bigger than the US States that opposed everything to do with COVID. Pfizer is suing Poland but alas that's not mentioned. You stick to the line you want to run with and I will call out what I see as misinformation.

News flash - states have governments (that's a small "g" by the way), both here and in the USA.
Try and focus on the topic, not wandering off on tangents. Poland wasn't mentioned because it's not relevant.Pfizer is also suing Hungary and Romania, for the same reason - that they did not pay for their vaccines.Those alleged debts don't necessarily go to the issue of whether or not Pfizer is dodgy, as I don't know if that has been argued there.
You haven't called out any misinformation either - you have not said what of Pfizer's conduct that I have referred to, is misinformation. Good luck with that.
PS. Can you explain to me the line that I want to run with? I am intrigued.
Edit: No need to respond, I just read your holiday posts so I understand about your alcohol and drug use.

[stui magpie]

Look, saying that a big Pharma company has engaged in some dodgy dealings is like saying that a politician has been somewhat loose with the truth. Anyone who was surprised by either is a good candidate to buy that bridge.

I'm up to my 5th (mabe 6th?) Covid shot, I get one each winter when I get a flu shot. I've never had Covid (that I know of) and never had Flu (except Man Flu which has no vaccine).

Anyone who thinks Big Pharma are altruistic organisations who invest in R&D to develop medicines to make lives better is also a candidate to buy that bridge. While many of the people who work there doing that R&D may be like that, the organisations are purely motivated by making money. If a few people die or get unpleasant side effects due to not enough testing, meh, little bag of "piss off" money and move on.

[Durka]

Watch out, you are about to be called a conspiracy theorist and a cooker!

[David]

Are we really doing this?

I'm not arguing for or against the ethics of Pfizer – like Stui, I tend to expect the worst of big corporations – but posts here are claiming a lot more than that, including suggesting that there's a media conspiracy to blow this out of proportion, and that international bodies like the WHO are in service of lining the pockets of Big Pharma.

Something most of us used to be able to agree on – that epidemics are real, can have varying public health impacts from moderate to severe and need to be brought under control – has, thanks to the sad detachment from reality of many on the right, now become an ideologically coded position. It may well be that monkey pox isn't a major problem and that we in Australia will be able to safely file it away with swine flu, SARS and ebola as another deadly epidemic that wreaked some havoc in places overseas but never took hold here. As I recall, we weren't quite so lucky with COVID – though of course, if neither you nor any of your loved ones were among the 20,000 who died here (or ever got to find out whether you would have been among the many more who might have died if it hadn't been taken seriously), then it's easy to dismiss that and all other fast-spreading potentially fatal diseases in future as a "scamdemic".

One poster claims above that "it's going to be very hard to take the next pandemic seriously". It seems very optimistic to think that you'll have any choice in that. Much like natural disasters and wars, pandemics have a habit of making people take them seriously whether they like it or not, and whether or not Pfizer or any other vaccination provider stand to make a buck out of it.

[Durka]

One poster claims above that "it's going to be very hard to take the next pandemic seriously". It seems very optimistic to think that you'll have any choice in that. Much like natural disasters and wars, pandemics have a habit of making people take them seriously whether they like it or not, and whether or not Pfizer or any other vaccination provider stand to make a buck out of it.

Apart from many people having memories like goldfish, the next pandemic will be treated very differently because of what occurred. I don't know about you, but I was very pissed off that a pandemic became primarily a political issue, with policy being determined by polling results, and not a health issue.
Look at some of the things that were said and done.
One shot of a vaccine will stop you from being infected with covid. It didn't.
Then, two shots will stop you being infected with covid. It didn't.
Then, 3 shots will stop you from being infected with covid. It didn't.
At some time in there we were then told that it won't protect you from being infected, but it will reduce the consequences if infected.
We were also told by Pfizer, right at the start, to take their vaccine because it would mean that you would not pass the virus on and infect someone else.
Later on, Pfizer executives gave evidence that they had conducted no trials at all as to how their vaccine would alter transmission rates.
Those that I knew that were not vaccinated, either did not become infected, or if they did, they said it was not too bad and were over it in about a week. Of course I am aware that that was not the effect on everyone.
We were told to stay indoors - the worst place to be, despite the evidence. There was an early BLM march and we were told that would lead to rapid spread. It didn't.
We in Victoria were still locked down, despite the NSW health department stating that they had no record of anyone being infected with covid when outdoors.We all remember the video of little old ladies, alone in parks, sitting and reading, being accosted by police. A fisherman in his tinny in Port Philip Bay was also stopped by water police because he was just outside his 5km from home zone. A council employed gardener could work, but a privately employed gardener could not. There were dozens of examples like that which received a lot of publicity.
I had clients in the USA, UK, Spain and Mexico saying WTF is going on in your country, why are you locked down, do you have some sort of super covid there that is different to ours?
We were told by Chairman Dan, when he was questioned about night time curfews, that his decisions were based on health advice. The CHO Sutton, was asked about that, and he said that he did not make a recommendation about night time curfews. Unsurprisingly, Sutton's need to be at press conferences rapidly diminished after that.
After a while, during lockdowns, I completely ignored the 5km from home travel restriction, as did most of those that I know.
As time is going by, more medical specialists have come out and said that they were always against a lot of the covid policy recommendations but that a debate on the merits of the policy was not able to be had. It's easy enough to find interviews with them, all around the world, to the effect of being that if you were not in a high risk group, there was no real benefit in being vaccinated. I can't comment on that, as it's not my field, but it leads to suspicion.
None of what I have said above is conjecture or opinion.It led to countless people losing their businesses and livelihoods. I have seen that first hand.
I understand that there are also policy reasons for governments to have lied, but because many of their actions are now seen to have been incorrect, if you think complete submission and compliance will occur when there is another pandemic, you have to be dreaming.

[roar]

Currently in Europe and people are still quite aghast at Australia's - in particular Melbourne's - approach to COVID. They simply cannot believe we were forced to live under the conditions that were imposed on us. And these are people from every political slant.