COVID Vaccines Put Anti-Science Activists to Shame
On a rain-soaked day, thousands marched on Washington, D.C. to fight for science funding and scientific analysis in politics.
It turns out that, despite the destruction and heartbreak caused by the COVID pandemic, there is a silver lining: Scientists from academia, government, and industry worked together and, using the tools of biotechnology, created multiple vaccines that surely will put an end to the worst of the pandemic sometime in 2021. In short, they proved that science works, particularly that which comes from industry. Though politicians and the public love to hate Big Ag and Big Pharma, everybody comes begging for help when the going gets tough.
The change in public attitude is tangible. A headline in the Financial Times declared, "Covid vaccines offer Big Pharma a chance of rehabilitation." In its analysis, the FT says that the pharmaceutical industry is widely reviled because of the high prices it charges for its drugs, among other things, but the speed with which the industry developed COVID vaccines may allow for its reputation to be refurbished.
The Media's Role in Promoting Anti-Biotech Activism
<p>Of course, the media is partly to blame for the pharmaceutical industry's dismal reputation in the first place because of journalists' penchant for oversimplifying complicated stories and pinning blame on an easy scapegoat. While the pharmaceutical industry is far from angelic and places a hefty price tag on its products in the U.S., often gone unmentioned is the fact that high drug prices are the result of multiple factors, including lack of competition (<a href="https://www.modernhealthcare.com/article/20190225/NEWS/190229948/generic-drug-approval-growth-doesn-t-spark-competition" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>even among generic drugs</u></a>), <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-other-countries-freeload-on-u-s-drug-research-1487722580" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>foreign price controls</u></a> that allow citizens of other countries to "free load" off of American consumers, and a <a href="https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/06/01/spread-%E2%80%93-exploring-reason-high-cost-pharmaceuticals-11339" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>deliberately opaque</u></a> drug supply chain (that involves not only profit-maximizing pharmaceutical manufacturers but "middlemen" like distributors). But why delve into such nuance when it's easier to point to villains like Martin Shkreli?</p><p>Big Ag has been subjected to identical mistreatment by the media, with outlets such as the <em>New York Times</em> among the biggest offenders. One article it published compared pesticides to "<a href="https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/03/15/glyphosate-nyts-danny-hakim-lying-you-11001" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>Nazi-made sarin gas</u></a>," and another <a href="https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/10/26/nyts-eric-lipton-science-birther-12039" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>spread misinformation about a high-profile biotech scientist</u></a>. The website Undark, whose stated <a href="https://undark.org/who-is-undark/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>mission</u></a> is "true journalistic coverage of the sciences," once published an opinion piece written by a person who <a href="https://www.acsh.org/news/2017/11/29/undark-joins-dark-side-gmos-12217" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>works for an anti-GMO organization</u></a> and another <a href="https://undark.org/2019/06/27/monsanto-gmo-crusade/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer"><u>criticizing Monsanto for its reasonable efforts to defend itself</u></a> from disinformation. These aren't cherry-picked examples. Overall, the media clearly has taken sides: Science is great, unless it's science from industry.</p>Tech Strikes Back
<p>For years, the agricultural, pharmaceutical, and biotech industries fought back, but to no avail. GMOs are feared, pharma is hated, and biotech is misunderstood. Regulatory red tape abounds. But that may be all about to change, not because of a clever PR campaign, but thanks to the successful coronavirus vaccines produced by the pharma/biotech industry.</p><p><u><a href="https://www.acsh.org/news/2020/11/23/comparing-covid-vaccines-pfizer-vs-moderna-vs-astrazenecaoxford-15170" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">All of the major vaccines</a></u> were created using biotechnology, broadly defined as the use of living systems and organisms to develop products intended to improve human life or the planet. The Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines rely on mRNA (messenger RNA), which is essentially a molecular "photocopy" of the more familiar genetic material DNA. The mRNA molecules were tweaked using biotech and then shown to be 95% effective at preventing COVID in human volunteers. The AstraZeneca/Oxford vaccine is based on an older technology that genetically modifies a harmless virus to resemble an immunological target, in this case, SARS-CoV-2. Their vaccine is 62% to 90% effective.</p><p>Even better, the pharma/biotech industry showed that it can work hand-in-hand with the government, for instance the FDA, to produce vaccines in record-breaking time. Operation Warp Speed provided some financing to facilitate this process. History will look back at this endeavor and likely conclude that the unprecedented level of cooperation to develop a vaccine in less than 12 months was one of the greatest triumphs in public health history. (The bungled slow rollout is another story.)</p>Vaccines Are the Safest Medical Procedure We Have. Make Your Wager Wisely.
Frontline infectious disease physician Amesh Adalja received his COVID-19 vaccine on December 18th, 2020 in Butler, PA.
In the late 1650's the French polymath and renowned scientist Blaise Pascal, having undergone a religious experience that transformed him into something of a zealot, suggested the following logical strategy regarding belief in God: If there is a God, then believing in him will ensure you an eternity of bliss, while not believing in him could earn you an eternal sentence to misery.
On the other hand, if there is no God, believing in him anyway will cost you very little, and not believing in him will mean nothing in the non-existent after life. Therefore, the only sensible bet is to believe in God. This has come to be known as Pascal's wager.