It’s just an investment: Big Pharma spends twice as much on advertising as it does on developing cancer drugs.
Think about that. Most drugs are only prescribed by doctors so why advertise on TV at all? It’s not like patients are wandering through Walmart looking for a Pfizer. Should I get the Glaxo instead?
It turns out that the advertising money is not buying customers it’s buying the media. And it’s not paying to show the world something, but to hide it instead.
As Mark Steyn says, for the first time in history every person on Earth needs the same medicine, and four doses of it, no questions asked. The silence is complete: There are $15,000 million reasons why MSNBC, CNN, and all the rest didn’t ask the FDA or the TGA to “show us the data”, or even to explain why the data had to be hidden for 55 years or even 75 years. When politicians signed secret deals on our behalf the media didn’t demand to see the contracts, they wanted to know why it wasn’t done sooner. It’s the same reason they mock cheap drugs that reduce Covid by 63% but get excited about every new patented wonder-drug which just reduces hospitalization by a couple of days:
When people say the media loves scandal and sensationalism they’re wrong. The media loves money:
Follow the COVID Money
By Jeffrey I. Barke, M.D., American Thinker
Maybe the silence comes from the fact that the pharmaceutical industry spends more on lobbying than any other industry group. In 2020 big pharma spent over $300 million lobbying officeholders and government officials. It clearly pays off. The research to develop the COVID-19 vaccines was nearly all funded by taxpayers. The distribution of the vaccines, once developed, was further funded nearly entirely by taxpayers. The record-keeping and reporting on the vaccines is also at the expense of taxpayers, and the new repurposed Pfizer drug Paxlovid, used to treat COVID, has been paid for by taxpayers.
The pharmaceutical industry is said to spend $5.2 billion annually on television advertising aimed primarily at the consumer. It poured another $9.53 billion into digital advertising aimed at consumers and industry in 2020.
This total of nearly $15 billion spent by Big Pharma on advertising is more than twice what is spent on new cancer drug research. In fact, nine out of 10 of the largest pharmaceutical companies in America spend more on advertising than on research and development.
But there is more. The U.S. government is pushing COVID-19 jabs harder than the companies would ever likely choose to do on their own. This might be the reason: Almost half of the funding that supports the U.S. Food and Drug Administration comes from the very industries it is mandated to oversee.
This isn’t speculation, it’s big money. Consider: Pfizer expects $32 billion in COVID vaccine sales in 2022. Moderna is forecasting $19 billion in COVID sales with the vaccine being its only current commercial product. Moderna had never produced a vaccine before it developed its COVID shots. Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna are reported to be making $1,000 in profit every second of every business day
Big pharmacy chains are also participating in this government largess as well. The big chains earn “…roughly $40 per shot” from the federal government. Since the government provides the pharmacy chains with the vaccines and Paxlovid for free, almost all their charge for administering the shots or dispensing the drug is profit.
Mark Steyn gives a voice to the people who don’t exist: the Victims of the Vax
After the intro he starts at 8:20. There are some truly shocking stories.
The UK is now offering compensation.
The Wall-of-Pharma-Silence is built on more than just adverts and sponsorships, otherwise the BBC, ABC and CBC might have even been useful. The Big-Pharma financial octopus is so much more than just ad money. There are research deals with universities and medicos, and royalties for researchers. And behind the scenes, there are conflicts of interest, like the way Alphabet owns Youtube, Google and 12% of company that makes AstraZeneca Vax. And Big Pharma also spent $4.7b lobbying Big Government. Lucky that never affects rules, regulations or drug prices, right?
Whether the news is about vitamins, sunshine or Sudden Adult Death Syndrome, don’t ask if the media is interested and the audience wants to know — just ask if it will help Pfizer.