Unethical lots find opportunity in world crisis

Covid-19 is both a challenge and an opportunity. It is a challenge to the governments and people who are supposed to fight it out together. It is also an opportunity for the pharma companies to go ahead and make a kill. After all, such an opportunity comes rarely. Ethics shall be buried deep and unethical practices begin now in the race to bring out a vaccine. Corona has given them an opportunity to develop a vaccine for the aged population of the Earth because they are at the greatest risk of developing coronavirus disease 2019. In response to this public health crisis, researchers in the Precision Vaccines Programme (PVP) at Boston Children's Hospital are on the front lines of developing a vaccine specially targeted toward older populations — those who are at greatest risk of developing coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome-2 coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2).

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), older people and people with pre-existing medical conditions appear to be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with Covid-19. In Italy, a country with one of the world's oldest populations, a March 4 analysis by the national health institute found that of the 105 patients who died from the virus, the average age was 81. This finding squared with some of the other best data on the risks of the new respiratory disease, from China's Centre for Disease Control. In short, the disease appears to be deadlier in people with each passing decade. As the new coronavirus spreads illness, death, and catastrophe around the world, virtually no economic sector has been spared from harm. Pharmaceutical companies view Covid-19 as a once-in-a-lifetime business opportunity. The world needs pharmaceutical products, of course.For the new coronavirus outbreak, in particular, we need treatments and vaccines and, in the US, tests. Dozens of companies are now vying to make those cures.

They're all in that race. The global crisis will potentially be a blockbuster for the industry in terms of sales and profits and the worse the pandemic gets, the higher their eventual profit. The ability to make money of pharmaceuticals is already uniquely large in the US., which lacks the basic price controls other countries have, giving drug companies more freedom over setting prices for their products than anywhere else in the world. During the current crisis, pharmaceutical makers may have even more leeway than usual because of language industry lobbyists inserted into an $8.3 billion coronavirus spending package, passed last week, to maximize their profits from the pandemic. The final aid package not only omitted language that would have limited drug makers' intellectual property rights, it specifically prohibited the federal government from taking any action if it has concerns that the treatments or vaccines developed with public funds are priced too high. What an opportunity for the US. It can again profit because the governments are "reasonably" controlled by the pharma industry there. So be it. Let the unethical US again flourish on a disease. Instead of blaming China, they should thank it.