To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

[Flounder]

The Olympic committee cares deeply.

I thought they took all their bribes when they chose the location for the games. Do they get another round after the games happen?

[MontuckyFried]

Looks like Biden disagrees with Bill Gates on this one! Good move on the part of the Biden administration IMO. Credit where credit's due.

Taking ‘Extraordinary Measures,’ Biden Backs Suspending Patents on Vaccines
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/u...e-patents.html
Same piece that gets around NYT paywall I think: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/bi...LYe?li=BBnb7Kz

Pressure Mounts to Lift Patent Protections on Coronavirus Vaccines - President Biden and drugmakers are facing demands from liberal activists and global leaders to suspend intellectual property rights on the vaccines as the pandemic surges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/u...e-patents.html

HA! What sayeth you Bill Gates apologists?

[huckbucket]

Looks like Biden disagrees with Bill Gates on this one! Good move on the part of the Biden administration IMO. Credit where credit's due.

Taking ‘Extraordinary Measures,’ Biden Backs Suspending Patents on Vaccines
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/u...e-patents.html
Same piece that gets around NYT paywall I think: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/bi...LYe?li=BBnb7Kz

Pressure Mounts to Lift Patent Protections on Coronavirus Vaccines - President Biden and drugmakers are facing demands from liberal activists and global leaders to suspend intellectual property rights on the vaccines as the pandemic surges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/u...e-patents.html

HA! What sayeth you Bill Gates apologists?

You do realize that you're siding with "libreral activists?" A good hot shower might wash that off.

[Benny Profane]

I thought they took all their bribes when they chose the location for the games. Do they get another round after the games happen?

Yup, sort of. They even get their own hospital rooms.

Japan should cut its losses and tell the IOC to take its Olympic pillage somewhere else
By Sally Jenkins

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...mpic-contract/

"Somewhere along the line Baron Von Ripper-off and the other gold-plated pretenders at the International Olympic Committee decided to treat Japan as their footstool. But Japan didn’t surrender its sovereignty when it agreed to host the Olympics. If the Tokyo Summer Games have become a threat to the national interest, Japan’s leaders should tell the IOC to go find another duchy to plunder. A cancellation would be hard — but it would also be a cure.
Von Ripper-off, a.k.a. IOC President Thomas Bach, and his attendants have a bad habit of ruining their hosts, like royals on tour who consume all the wheat sheaves in the province and leave stubble behind. Where, exactly, does the IOC get off imperiously insisting that the Games must go on, when fully 72 percent of the Japanese public is reluctant or unwilling to entertain 15,000 foreign athletes and officials in the midst of a pandemic?
The answer is that the IOC derives its power strictly from the Olympic “host contract.” It’s a highly illuminating document that reveals much about the highhanded organization and how it leaves host nations with crippling debts. Seven pages are devoted to “medical services” the host must provide — free of charge — to anyone with an Olympic credential, including rooms at local hospitals expressly reserved for them and only them. Tokyo organizers have estimated they will need to divert about 10,000 medical workers to service the IOC’s demands.
Eight Olympic workers tested positive for the coronavirus during the torch relay last week — though they were wearing masks. Less than 2 percent of Japan’s population is vaccinated. Small wonder the head of Japan’s medical workers’ union, Susumu Morita, is incensed at the prospect of draining mass medical resources. “I am furious at the insistence on staging the Olympics despite the risk to patients’ and nurses’ health and lives,” he said in a statement.
[Olympic officials are determined to have a Tokyo Games despite Japan’s growing doubts]
Japan’s leaders should cut their losses and cut them now, with 11 weeks left to get out of the remainders of this deal. The Olympics always cost irrational sums — and they lead to irrational decisions. And it’s an irrational decision to host an international mega-event amid a global pandemic. It’s equally irrational to keep tossing good money after bad."

[MontuckyFried]

You do realize that you're siding with "libreral activists?" A good hot shower might wash that off.

You DO realize that people just might be a bit more nuanced than the internet wants you to believe, right?

[MultiVerse]

The Bill Gates argument is more nuanced too. A problem in general that extends to the internet is literacy. U.S. literacy is measured with a simple test. Passing this test is considered a high level of literacy:

Bob says that, “snowboarding is good.”

Matt says, “snowboarding is bad,”

Test takers are given three choices: “Is snowboarding good? Is snowboarding bad? Is there a disagreement?”

Apparently, most people will choose good or bad. They don’t recognize contradictory or nuanced statements in a logical structure. I think the inability to follow an argument explains in part why misinformation spreads so easily.

[MontuckyFried]

The Bill Gates argument is more nuanced too. A problem in general that extends to the internet is literacy. U.S. literacy is measured with a simple test. Passing this test is considered a high level of literacy:

Bob says that, “snowboarding is good.”

Matt says, “snowboarding is bad,”

Test takers are given three choices: “Is snowboarding good? Is snowboarding bad? Is there a disagreement?”

Apparently, most people will choose good or bad. They don’t recognize contradictory or nuanced statements in a logical structure. I think the inability to follow an argument explains in part why misinformation spreads so easily.

Excellent point. Your post might actually deserve its own thread. The lack of nuance on the internet is one of the biggest problems with modern discourse. ESPECIALLY when one is limited to a character limit like on Twitter, or if your post is SO well laid out, it's simply too long for the ADD crowd (ie everyone on the internet) to pay any attention to.

[ticketchecker]

Put my full Pfizer to a test yesterday on a flight to FL.

Seated with a couple of Qanons who barely had their masks up. She was reading the site patriots.win long after we were told to put phones in airplane mode.

They milked the little bag of pretzels and water for 2 hours because you can have your mask down while eating.

Then the guy put a dip of Copenhagen in for dessert


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

[Smoova]

20 to 49 are "young adults"? I mean, I'll take it, but I'm on the upper end of that range and I don't consider myself "young" anymore.

It's the mileage, not the years ...

[altasnob]

I am interested in people's opinion on Biden throwing intellectual property rights out the window to help foreign countries manufacture Pfizer vaccine on their own? I understand it might be meaningless since Europe will likely balk. I mean, if COVID is lab based, why should pharmaceutical companies make billions off of us? Whose to say they did not have some kind of role in "accidental" release. Brilliant business model. On the flip side, would any industry want to invest r and d when the government might come in at any moment and force them to cough it up to competitors?

[KQ]

I am interested in people's opinion on Biden throwing intellectual property rights out the window to help foreign countries manufacture Pfizer vaccine on their own? I understand it might be meaningless since Europe will likely balk. I mean, if COVID is lab based, why should pharmaceutical companies make billions off of us? Whose to say they did not have some kind of role in "accidental" release. Brilliant business model. On the flip side, would any industry want to invest r and d when the government might come in at any moment and force them to cough it up to competitors?

It's been done before (or at least attempted with the creation of a patent pool - there were many lawsuits) during WWI with the Wright Bros. airplane design. IMO it's in the best interest of the nation and the world.

In the end it was only when involvement in the First World War loomed and the necessity of aviation as a military tool became apparent by looking across the Atlantic that the U.S. government took control of the situation. They created a patent pool to end the widespread litigation and encourage manufacturers to make and sell aircraft. All relevant patents went into a pool and members of that pool were able to use all these developments in their aircraft without having to pay exorbitant royalties. The patent pool proved a necessity for aviation and other modern industries such as the automotive industry, because it prevented stalemate and allowed for progress. Once this occurred, the growth of aviation was still slow going and manufacture would remain below demand even by war’s end; the productive capacity of American manufacturers was not up to par. Only five manufacturers had turned out over 10 airplanes and the largest manufacturer (Curtiss’s company) could only turn out 1,500 per year at most (the other allied powers were calling for 25,000 from the U.S.). However, appropriations had increased significantly since the height of the patent wars when they had totaled a mere $500,000 over an entire five-year span.


Innovation & Infringement
The Wright Brothers, Glenn H. Curtiss, and the Aviation Patent Wars

[riser4]

Put my full Pfizer to a test yesterday on a flight to FL.

Seated with a couple of Qanons who barely had their masks up. She was reading the site patriots.win long after we were told to put phones in airplane mode.

They milked the little bag of pretzels and water for 2 hours because you can have your mask down while eating.

Then the guy put a dip of Copenhagen in for dessert


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

Dip in a confined space like that would get me sentenced to life without possibility of parole in a different confined space. Seriously, that's next level assholery. That shit fucking reeks. I may be mostly noseblind, but there's a smell from chew that penetrates my messed up nose and makes me have to fight very hard not to vomit.

[Smoova]

Dip in a confined space like that would get me sentenced to life without possibility of parole in a different confined space. Seriously, that's next level assholery. That shit fucking reeks. I may be mostly noseblind, but there's a smell from chew that penetrates my messed up nose and makes me have to fight very hard not to vomit.

Pull down mask, puke in dipper's lap. Freedom!

[GoldMember]

It's been done before (or at least attempted with the creation of a patent pool - there were many lawsuits) during WWI with the Wright Bros. airplane design. IMO it's in the best interest of the nation and the world.

In the end it was only when involvement in the First World War loomed and the necessity of aviation as a military tool became apparent by looking across the Atlantic that the U.S. government took control of the situation. They created a patent pool to end the widespread litigation and encourage manufacturers to make and sell aircraft. All relevant patents went into a pool and members of that pool were able to use all these developments in their aircraft without having to pay exorbitant royalties. The patent pool proved a necessity for aviation and other modern industries such as the automotive industry, because it prevented stalemate and allowed for progress. Once this occurred, the growth of aviation was still slow going and manufacture would remain below demand even by war’s end; the productive capacity of American manufacturers was not up to par. Only five manufacturers had turned out over 10 airplanes and the largest manufacturer (Curtiss’s company) could only turn out 1,500 per year at most (the other allied powers were calling for 25,000 from the U.S.). However, appropriations had increased significantly since the height of the patent wars when they had totaled a mere $500,000 over an entire five-year span.


Innovation & Infringement
The Wright Brothers, Glenn H. Curtiss, and the Aviation Patent Wars

This is controversial as it seemingly goes against Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8 that extends to protect invention and copyright. While I agree this is a global emergency, the actual manufacturing capabilities in foreign lands will likely take a long time to get to speed so forfeiting intellectual rights of invention, even if funded by the fed, seems like an exercise in futility for real application. In the process, it causes a chilling effect for innovation in the future. How many future 'crises' are potentially deemed of such importance that the inventor's rights to IP are sacrificed? I think this is a dark alley for the future of innovation in this country. In my view, if we best want to help, the U.S. seems to be in adequate supply of vaccine so ramp up production for use in other countries and ship the product. I would guess this would be a faster solution, anyway. The IP give-away is another can of worms that would likely be challenged and rise to the USSC and, in my view be found to be unconstitutional. Then, even if the challenge was defeated, getting facilities to a point of actual mass production would take some months. This idea seems entirely impractical.

[Not DJSapp]

It's been done before (or at least attempted with the creation of a patent pool - there were many lawsuits) during WWI with the Wright Bros. airplane design. IMO it's in the best interest of the nation and the world.

I posted a few pages back. I'm with Gates on this one. The vaccines have a public image and brand name battle right now. J+J was halted after 6 people got sick. AZ was halted after a handful got sick. I'm all for more production and moving to generics quickly but this is too fast. The technology is new and the public doesn't trust it. We can't afford to increase vaccine hesitancy because people trust the generic even less, or if issues with the generic tarnish the brand name's reputation. Manufacturing must be kept in the hands of the experts for a while longer.

All of this 'out of an abundance of caution' talk is being tossed aside in the name of increasing production makes no sense to me. People are worried about big pharma globally making billions? The US alone has spent nearly $6 TRILLION on stimulus to keep the economy from cratering. If we increase vaccine hesitancy how many more stimulus packages will we need to push out because we fail to reach 70-80% immunity? Big pharma profits are a lesser evil than continuing to inject stimulus at this point because we need public confidence that they work and are safe. Opening manufacturing to lesser facilities with untrained personnel isn't going to boost confidence in the vaccines.

If the IP is released and all of these other manufacturers can somehow crank out quality product, can the global medical distribution network actually get these shots into arms in a timely fashion? We fell on our face pretty hard in the US. Is India capable of doing better? What is a real expectation of how much vaccine they could effectively take on and distribute? I'd like to have those answers before we start down the road of opening up vaccine manufacture to every Tom, Dick, and Mary with a warehouse of stainless steel equipment at the expense of people believing in the vaccines.

From some other big picture data:
According to the internets, 1.21 billion vax doses have been administered. Assuming 2 doses needed, we need 16 billion doses, we're 7.5% done in the span of 5 months (1.5%/month). And globally, we're accelerating. If J+J gets a bigger hold on the global supply, it accelerates even faster as we reduce the number of doses needed. What does the forecast look like for vaccine production in the 3-4 months it would take for these new facilities to even begin? If at that time production by big pharma outpaces our ability to distribute and inject, what's the point of giving the IP away?

[huckbucket]

I am interested in people's opinion on Biden throwing intellectual property rights out the window to help foreign countries manufacture Pfizer vaccine on their own? I understand it might be meaningless since Europe will likely balk. I mean, if COVID is lab based, why should pharmaceutical companies make billions off of us? Whose to say they did not have some kind of role in "accidental" release. Brilliant business model. On the flip side, would any industry want to invest r and d when the government might come in at any moment and force them to cough it up to competitors?

As usual, there are really great opinions to stand on as one formulates their own. This is one of them.

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipelin.../06/waiving-ip

[Not DJSapp]

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipelin.../06/waiving-ip

Solid article. The discussion on lack of non-IP vaccine manufacturing materials, equipment, and experts to train others is VERY relevant. I was also not aware that Moderna has already stated they won't enforce their patent rights on the vaccine back in October. Yet, nobody has taken up the torch there because of all of the difficulty in production. So maybe all of this conversation is just politicians pissing the in breeze.

https://investors.modernatx.com/news...uring-covid-19

Accordingly, while the pandemic continues, Moderna will not enforce our COVID-19 related patents against those making vaccines intended to combat the pandemic. Further, to eliminate any perceived IP barriers to vaccine development during the pandemic period, upon request we are also willing to license our intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines to others for the post pandemic period.

[Conundrum]

Ha, the Missoula Health Dept. is currently all over social media advertising they are at a brewery here giving J&J to anyone who will take it. Also right across the street from the homeless shelter, but I assume they've already canvassed the shit out of that.

Hilarious. A few weeks ago people were angry at those jumping out of line even with open slots for vaccines not being filled now health depts are saying come down and get a beer and a shot and still can't give them away. I guess timing is everything.

[The AD]

They milked the little bag of pretzels and water for 2 hours because you can have your mask down while eating.

I noticed a similar thing when I went to a Mariners baseball game a couple weeks ago. I saw quite a few people who seemed to be eating and drinking the entire game just so they wouldn't need to wear masks. Granted, this is an entirely different level of risk considering it was a socially distanced outdoor venue, but I still thought it was funny people seem so adamant about not wearing masks.

[funkendrenchman]

I noticed a similar thing when I went to a Mariners baseball game a couple weeks ago. I saw quite a few people who seemed to be eating and drinking the entire game just so they wouldn't need to wear masks. Granted, this is an entirely different level of risk considering it was a socially distanced outdoor venue, but I still thought it was funny people seem so adamant about not wearing masks.

That's pretty normal for a baseball game.

[TBS]

Solid article. The discussion on lack of non-IP vaccine manufacturing materials, equipment, and experts to train others is VERY relevant. I was also not aware that Moderna has already stated they won't enforce their patent rights on the vaccine back in October. Yet, nobody has taken up the torch there because of all of the difficulty in production. So maybe all of this conversation is just politicians pissing the in breeze.

https://investors.modernatx.com/news...uring-covid-19

Agreed. The Moderna experience is a pretty fucking good real life example of why IP waivers won’t speed shots into arms.

[RampagingMullet]

As one of the millions of people in north america who's entire family had fear flu and were/are totally fine, all the vax passport talk pisses me off to no end and I have all my other recommended jabs. I want to go to a fucking concert without a government mandated injection. I am pro vax, but I'm pro choice first and the research on this shit is in it's infancy which is why jabs are only permitted under emergency authorization. "Evidence provided suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins trigger a pro-inflammatory response on brain endothelial cells that may contribute to an altered state of BBB function. Together, these results are the first to show the direct impact that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein could have on brain endothelial cells; thereby offering a plausible explanation for the neurological consequences seen in COVID-19 patients." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33053430/

[subtle plague]

I am interested in people's opinion on Biden throwing intellectual property rights out the window to help foreign countries manufacture Pfizer vaccine on their own? I understand it might be meaningless since Europe will likely balk. I mean, if COVID is lab based, why should pharmaceutical companies make billions off of us? Whose to say they did not have some kind of role in "accidental" release. Brilliant business model. On the flip side, would any industry want to invest r and d when the government might come in at any moment and force them to cough it up to competitors?

Hey now... at least he is only throwing German Biontech intellectual property out the window not American.

Maybe American shareholder money, but not intellectual property.

[wooley12]

As one of the millions of people in north america who's entire family had fear flu and were/are totally fine, all the vax passport talk pisses me off to no end and I have all my other recommended jabs. I want to go to a fucking concert without a government mandated injection. I am pro vax, but I'm pro choice first and the research on this shit is in it's infancy which is why jabs are only permitted under emergency authorization. "Evidence provided suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins trigger a pro-inflammatory response on brain endothelial cells that may contribute to an altered state of BBB function. Together, these results are the first to show the direct impact that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein could have on brain endothelial cells; thereby offering a plausible explanation for the neurological consequences seen in COVID-19 patients." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33053430/

People are saying the vax makes your dick fall off. You ok so far? Have you checked?

[old goat]

As one of the millions of people in north america who's entire family had fear flu and were/are totally fine, all the vax passport talk pisses me off to no end and I have all my other recommended jabs. I want to go to a fucking concert without a government mandated injection. I am pro vax, but I'm pro choice first and the research on this shit is in it's infancy which is why jabs are only permitted under emergency authorization. "Evidence provided suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 spike proteins trigger a pro-inflammatory response on brain endothelial cells that may contribute to an altered state of BBB function. Together, these results are the first to show the direct impact that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein could have on brain endothelial cells; thereby offering a plausible explanation for the neurological consequences seen in COVID-19 patients." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33053430/

me me me me me me me. It's all about me. My rights. My freedom. That's the trouble with this country--lots of rights, no responsibilities.

as far the article you posted--read the title. That's not evidence of any adverse effect of the vaccines on the brain of living humans. Have you seen any reports of brain damage in the 100's of millions of people who have been vaccinated, except for the rare cases of CVST? OTOH there are plenty of reports of brain damage in people infected with covid.