It’s sickening how much Big Pharma bosses have profited from the COVID-19 pandemic, after overselling billions of people around the world on the wondrous qualities of their vaccines.
Moderna chief executive Stéphane Bancel made nearly $400 million last year on his stock options and still owns a reported $2.8 billion of shares in the company plus his salary and perks.
His Pfizer counterpart, Albert Bourla, pocketed a $33 million salary last year, on top of the millions in Pfizer shares he sold.
But before they ride off into the sunset to count their filthy lucre, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton plans to investigate whether their companies misrepresented the efficacy and safety of the vaccines and manipulated vaccine trial data.
On Monday, Paxton will launch an investigation into potential violations of his state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, he has revealed exclusively in The Post.
He also wants to know whether the pharmaceutical giants engaged in gain-of-function research and misled the public about it.
Immune … to laws
The Texas investigation could have widespread implications for the legal immunity granted to manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines and open the door to class-action lawsuits from people injured by the mRNA jabs, amid reports of rare but serious adverse effects.
“The catastrophic effects of the pandemic and subsequent interventions forced on our country and citizens deserve intense scrutiny, and we are pursuing any hint of wrongdoing to the fullest,” Paxton said in a statement.
“This pandemic was a deeply challenging time for Americans. If any company illegally took advantage of consumers during this period or compromised people’s safety to increase their profits, they will be held responsible.
“If public health policy was developed on the basis of flawed or misleading research, the public must know.”
He says Big Pharma had a “vested interest” in the success of its COVID-19 vaccines because of the record profits they drove.
“This vested interest … combined with reports about the alarming side effects of vaccines, demands aggressive investigation.”
The existence of federal vaccine mandates “means this investigation into the scientific and ethical basis on which public health decisions were made is of major significance.”
Paxton will demand the companies hand over documents relating to the “decision-making behind pandemic interventions forced on the public, especially when a profit motive or political pressure may have compromised Americans’ health and safety.”
Checking Big Pharma
The Texas investigation comes on the heels of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ call for a grand jury investigation into “crimes and wrongdoing committed against Floridians related to the COVID-19 vaccine.”
DeSantis has appointed independent experts such as Stanford University professor Jay Bhattacharya to a new Public Health Integrity Committee to examine “adverse events from mRNA vaccines.”
“The Biden administration and pharmaceutical corporations continue to push widespread distribution of mRNA vaccines on the public, including children as young as 6 months old, through relentless propaganda while ignoring real-life adverse events,” DeSantis office said in a statement in December.
“These risks include coagulation disorders, acute cardiac injuries, Bell’s palsy, encephalitis, appendicitis, and shingles.”
DeSantis and his state Surgeon General Dr. Joseph Ladapo maintain that, while the vaccines were effective in protecting older and vulnerable people, risks for younger people may have outweighed the benefits.
Meanwhile, author Alex Berenson last week sued President Biden, other federal officials and Pfizer bigwigs — including $33 million boss Bourla and board member Scott Gottlieb — for “conspiring to violate my Constitutional rights.”
A shot in the arm
Berenson has been the tip of the spear when it comes to holding Big Pharma accountable.
He sued Twitter and forced it to hand over documents showing that senior Biden administration officials were behind his ban from Twitter in August 2021.
According to Berenson’s lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court, Gottlieb, the former Trump FDA commissioner-turned-Pfizer board member, allegedly pressured Twitter to de-platform Berenson for tweeting that the mRNA injections don’t stop transmission of the virus, a fact that CDC Director Rochelle Walensky admitted in testimony to Congress last week.
In other words, claims that vaccine mandates would stop the spread of the virus were wildly exaggerated.
But they were great for vaccine sales.
Twitter was forced to reinstate Berenson’s account and acknowledge that his “tweets should not have led to suspension.”
But the Big Tech censorship regime first uncovered by Berenson’s court case, and later in the “Twitter files” and lawsuits by the states of Missouri and Louisiana, show that truthful statements about the benefits of natural immunity and the efficacy of vaccines were suppressed in ways that benefited Big Pharma.
Paxton’s probe will further add to our knowledge about how that cozy arrangement worked.
“Given the unprecedented political power and influence over public health policies that pharmaceutical companies now wield, it is more important than ever that they are held accountable if they take dangerous, illegal actions to boost their revenues,” he said.
Amen.
Hunter held to account
Hunter Biden’s showdown with baby mama Lunden Roberts in a Batesville, Ark., courtroom Monday may be the first time in his life that he hasn’t been able to wheedle out of the consequences of his actions.
The president’s son is crying poor and seeking to cut child support payments to Navy Joan, his unacknowledged 4-year-old daughter with Roberts, a former stripper with whom he had a monthslong affair.
It appears Hunter’s lawyers will not come to a settlement with Roberts to avoid his opening the kimono on his financial secrets.
New documents, uncovered by nonprofit Marco Polo and published over the weekend by Breitbart News, show that Hunter’s firm Skaneateles LLC, which held the BHR share, is controlled by Morris.
No doubt Roberts’ attorneys will want to know just how much Hunter received for the BHR stake, which has been estimated to be worth between $420,000 and $20 million, but which he told the New York Times he sold at a loss.
Hunter received his cut in the Chinese Communist Party-backed fund in December 2013, a few days after flying to Beijing on Air Force Two with his dad, then-Vice President Joe Biden, who met with Hunter’s Chinese partner during the trip.
By 2019, BHR had $2.5 billion in funds under management but struggled with poor investments.
Hunter’s abandoned laptop and the financial records it contains are expected to take center stage in the case. Hunter’s attorney Brent Langdon could not answer when Independence County, Arkansas, Circuit Judge Holly Meyer asked: “Is it your client’s laptop or not?”
“I am not in a position to even begin to answer that question,” Langdon replied. It’s unlikely the judge will allow this evasiveness to continue.
Whatever the result in the end, little Navy, the president’s unmentioned seventh grandchild, can be proud to know when she grows up that she has a mother gutsy enough to stand up for her against the White House and the best lawyers money can buy.
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