Big Pharma Twitter File

Big Pharma Twitter File
By Terry A. Hurlbut
Today, Twitter Files reporter Lee Fang dropped another installment – this time how Pfizer conspired with multiple so-called rivals. This is yet another conspiracy by Big Pharma – the collection of a small number of large drug makers. The object this time: to suppress any talk of developing a “generic” or “people’s” vaccine. This has nothing to do with where the vaccines work or not – or whether they work, but not as advertised. Instead, this is about capturing a market for brand-name drugs and suppressing the development of an “open-source” preparation. It is also about conspiracy to suppress invention. If that doesn’t violate the Sherman Antitrust Act, it should.
Background: generic drugs
Any doctor soon learns why drugs cost so much money. In order to recover their research-and-development costs, drug companies rely heavily on patents. But patents last only for a limited time. The U.S. Constitution so provides, and so do the constitutions, “Basic Laws,” etc., of nearly all other countries.
What happens when patents expire? Other companies may then feel free to market the same chemical substances under their generic names. These names are almost always short forms of the chemical names, which follow the strict conventions of the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry. Exceptions do exist – like the name aspirin, which in the U.S. is a generic name. (In Canada, Aspirin® still has the protection of a trade name for acetyl salicylic acid.)
For that reason, typical prescription slips carry two different signature blanks. A pharmacist notes not only the signature but the label on the blank. If it reads Dispense As Written, the pharmacist must use the brand name the doctor specifies. But if it reads Generic Substitution Permitted, the pharmacist may use the “off brand” or “non-brand.” Drug companies lobby doctors – hard – to induce them to sign as Dispense As Written.
All this assumes that the generic brand even exists. Almost immediately with the announcement of the COVID-19 Pandemic, a cry went up to create a generic or “people’s vaccine.” The pharmaceutical industry, worldwide, worked to quash that kind of talk. This, therefore, forms the background of Twitter Files Part 15.
The Big Pharma Twitter Files Thread
Herewith Twitter Files Part 15: the Big Pharma Thread. Lee Fang dropped fifteen tweets, beginning at 7:30 a.m. Pacific Time this morning. As ever, CNAV embeds every other tweet, with each one (after the first) also embedding the tweet before it.
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615008625575202818
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615012029374533634
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615013698267148289
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615016216233652224
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615018277436264451
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615020501222686721
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615022757229785088
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615023905881853952
Note: Lee Fang, at least here, clearly subscribes to the notion that SARS-CoV-2 is deadly. Nor does he pass any judgment on the safety or efficacy of any preparation now on the market. His quarrel is simply this: Pfizer, Bio-N-Tech, Moderna, AstraZeneca, and other firms acted to prevent the development of a low-cost immunization preparation. The world will likely never know whether such a thing was possible – or whether the generic preparation might have been safer, and more effective, than any product of Big Pharma might have been.
Thus far, no one has reacted to dispute the basic premise of this thread. Most reaction consists of “There, you see!” But User Kristen Ruby protests to Lee Fang that she reported on these things first.
https://twitter.com/sparklingruby/status/1615039047742660608
https://twitter.com/sparklingruby/status/1607447213432512512
https://twitter.com/sparklingruby/status/1603203952648257536
https://twitter.com/sparklingruby/status/1608687067944620034
Time was when drug companies couldn’t advertise
Aside from that, we hear from two users who recalled that only recently did the law allow any drug company to advertise a prescription medication directly to patients.
https://twitter.com/MarkAMilam1/status/1615048222086467594
Other users remind us that the law shields Big Pharma and its members from lawsuits for untoward effects:
https://twitter.com/brian420akaKing/status/1615043344639594499
https://twitter.com/kourtneelynne/status/1615046963669667840
One user explained the African experience by pointing out that Africans must use a generic drug against malaria. That drug, by this theory, was effective enough against SARS-CoV-2 to make the vaccine unnecessary.
https://twitter.com/TonyDeplorable1/status/1615011369476292610
This user created a thread addressing the distortion of information regarding Gardasil, a vaccine against human papilloma virus, the causative agent of cervical carcinoma.
https://twitter.com/JoshWalkos/status/1615000161583005696
Two users wanted to convene criminal tribunals for Big Pharma executives. One of them embedded a picture dropping a particularly dark hint:
https://twitter.com/ihatethemedia/status/1615081235075985408
Finally, this user asked sardonically whether the German government would shortly request a “deamplification” of the Twitter Files 15 thread.
https://twitter.com/MissMaga2016/status/1615051579773816832
So what do we have?
This thread reveals to things. First, Twitter let yet another player, or a group of players, use it. Once you start doing this kind of favor for one, you cannot withhold it from others. In fact, Elon Musk himself addressed the initial reasons for the “censorship tools,” and their abuse:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1615070479278313472
To “scams and spam,” let’s add, in all fairness: cyberbullying, and solicitation and grooming.
We also see Big Pharma trying to capture a market. Free markets require unrestricted information. Furthermore, any company of size, eventually places itself at moral hazard of trying to protect its market by illicit means. To say nothing of how Western society has allowed Big Pharma to grow so “big.” The people have grown vain and, yes, decadent, by turning to industrial medicine to solve what are essentially lifestyle problems.
Should appropriate authorities investigate Big Pharma for lying about the relative safety and efficacy of “dispense as written” versus “generic”? Yes, most certainly. But we, the consumers of their product, must ask ourselves why we grew dependent on them. If they now behave like suppliers and pushers, what does that make us? Addicts, that’s what. There’s a tendency we ought to strive to overcome.
Link to:
The article:
https://cnav.news/2023/01/16/editorial/talk/big-pharma-twitter-file/

The thread:
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615008625575202818
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615012029374533634
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615013698267148289
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615016216233652224
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615018277436264451
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615020501222686721
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615022757229785088
https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615023905881853952

Kristen Ruby’s tweets and thread starts:
https://twitter.com/sparklingruby/status/1615039047742660608
https://twitter.com/sparklingruby/status/1607447213432512512
https://twitter.com/sparklingruby/status/1603203952648257536
https://twitter.com/sparklingruby/status/1608687067944620034

Various other reactions:
https://twitter.com/MarkAMilam1/status/1615048222086467594
https://twitter.com/brian420akaKing/status/1615043344639594499
https://twitter.com/kourtneelynne/status/1615046963669667840
https://twitter.com/TonyDeplorable1/status/1615011369476292610
https://twitter.com/JoshWalkos/status/1615000161583005696
https://twitter.com/ihatethemedia/status/1615081235075985408
https://twitter.com/MissMaga2016/status/1615051579773816832

Elon Musk on censorship:
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1615070479278313472

Declarations of Truth Twitter feed:
https://twitter.com/DecTruth

Conservative News and Views:
https://cnav.news/

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https://cnav.store/

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