FROM JC

? The Wall Street Journal must have gotten a nice fat check from Pfizer’s public relations firm this month. Yesterday, it ran an Alyssa Findlay editorial headlined, “The Covid Vaccine Windfall Turns for Pfizer and Moderna.” Ms. Findlay has previously been critical of pandemic policy, so the headline seemed promising, like maybe the article would detail the “rise and fall of Pfizer and Moderna.” But … nope.

image.png
Instead, I was shocked to discover the article was shameless pharma industry boosterism, a barely-disguised public relations puff piece for Pfizer and Moderna, a childlike and wildly-optimistic call to “move on” from pandemic distrust, a stomach-turning effort to rehabilitate pharma’s tarnished reputation and generate some fresh excitement over all the new mRNA drugs coming down the pipeline.

And the new mRNA drugs will work this time! They promise.

Outrageously, the financial paper’s article’s sub-headline drew a smiley face on Pfizer and Moderna’s tanking stocks, somehow generously allowing that, and I am not making this up: “Reduced demand and revenue for the jabs isn’t bad news; The industry is working as it’s designed.”

Hahahahha! I couldn’t stop laughing! First of all, Alyssa Findlay sure is an upbeat kind of lady. So that’s nice. But what was much, much funnier was how perfect that sub-headline is, for an article about the shots. Think about it. Alyssa said: reduced demand and reduced revenue are signs the jab industry is working! Hahahaha! Get it!? They’re killing me!

Couldn’t they see the parallel? Myocarditis and blood clots are signs the shots are working, too! You really can’t make this stuff up!

I want to wear a t-shirt around with Alyssa’s sub-headline printed in bold face under the WSJ logo and a cartoon hypodermic needle.

The article’s real purpose was to dangle a tantalizing huckster’s inventory of snake oil and high-tech cure-alls, from new weight loss pills (that miraculously appeared on the scene right when pharma most needed a boost), to gene-editing technologies that will fix high-cholesterol and for hemophiliacs (Pfizer!) to — this time they mean it — personalized mRNA treatments for skin cancer (Moderna!).

Yawn.

What was much more interesting was what Ms. Findlay buried between all the promos; what she easily admitted while promoting all really good stuff coming down the pike. Here’s a lightly edited version of her comments about the covid vaccines that paints a surprising picture:

The jabs’ greatest benefit was in providing political leaders with the courage to lift destructive lockdowns and mask mandates. The vaccines were supposed to be a two-shot-and-done regimen, not blockbuster medicines that rung up tens of billions of dollars in sales every year with government support. But Washington rewrote the memo. From vaccine mandates to annual booster recommendations and misleading marketing campaigns, its salesmanship is matched only by its efforts to dump electric vehicles on an unwilling public. Statins and diabetes medicines prevent heart attacks, but the government doesn’t run ads urging Americans to use Lipitor or Ozempic.
And two-thirds of Covid deaths have occurred since the vaccines rolled out in January 2021. One enormous negative side effect of the government’s vaccine boosterism is that it has increased public cynicism toward pharmaceutical companies at a time when innovation is advancing at warp speed.
There’s a lot to unpack there. First, notice she blithely concluded the “jabs’ greatest benefit” was not saving people’s lives, which after all is what they were supposed to do. No, the “greatest benefit” was creating political cover for ending lockdowns and mask mandates (we traded those for jab mandates, I guess). It’s even more telling that Ms. Findlay so easily dismisses any actual health benefits from the shots. Not everyone will agree with her, surely, but the argument is now on the corporate media table.

Even though Findlay never drew the ultimate point, she did expressly concede that two-third of “covid deaths” occurred after the vaccine mandate. That is basically admitting “they don’t do jack.”

Second, as a close media observer, I think this may be the first time I’ve seen an Establishment Media piece outright accusing the federal government of making the covid vaccine program into a “misleading marketing campaign,” and comparing Operation Warp Speed, not to a lifesaving emergency pandemic accomplishment, but to a boondoggle, like pushing unwanted electric cars on unwilling consumers through mandates, boosterism, and regulatory fiat.

It appears Big Pharma is ready to move on from covid vaccines. But personally, while I appreciate all of Ms. Findlay’s enthusiasm, I am not quite ready to move on yet. We still have a lot of talking to do.