By Atilio A. Boron on December 21, 2020
The fake-news industry and the pro-Macrí opposition to the government of Alberto Fernandez are insinuating that the relations between the government of Argentina and Pfizer are not transparent, that there is the suspicion of corruption. There is no proof, but that doesn’t matter, as long as the concept is put out there. That there is a persistent tension between the government and the industry is obvious, as is the fact that the pharmaceutical company wants to impose its own conditions regardless of national laws. But what the hit-man media never says, much less editorializes about, is the strange behavior of the pharmaceutical industry, which is presented to the public as the corporate reincarnation of Mother Theresa.
For example, they never inform us that on Monday, November 9, Pfizer CEO, Albert Bourla, sold 132,508 shares of Pfizer at the price of $41.94 each (about 5 cents below the historic record high point), getting rid of 62% of the shares he had in this company and pocketing $5.6 million in profits. Although the sale was announced in advance, (since August 19, conforming to the US regulations preventing CEOs from making sudden surprise sales) the exact date of this action still provokes surprise, because it occurred one day after the company announced positive results for Phase III trials, with an extraordinary rise in the price of shares. The big question was: Why sell his shares if the outlook for Pfizer’s business couldn’t possibly be better? Does he know something we don’t know about the efficacy and practicality of a vaccine that has to travel the world in a stable cold chain between 70 and 80 degrees below zero? Or maybe the corporation discovered negative side effects, with as yet unclear causes? If the outlook for the future was as favorable as the media announced with great fanfare, why did he sell his shares? What capitalist would do such a thing?
But Bourla wasn’t the only one: Pfizer Executive Vice President Sally Susman also sold stock, for a total of $1.8 million. And that’s not the end of it. The same source informs us that “high-level executives of other pharmaceutical companies that are developing vaccines against COVID-19, like Moderna and Novavax, have sold large quantities of stock after the news releases promoting their own vaccines.” Financial Times informs us that Stéphane Bancel, the billionaire CEO of Moderna, another of the big pharma companies in the competition for the production of a vaccine, was even bolder than his Pfizer counterpart and sold his shares in his company for $49.8 million, reporting an immediate profit of $400 million in one day. Curiosity? Surprise? Just coincidences?
Strange behavior, no doubt, but revealing that these companies, supposedly working on guaranteeing the survival of thousands of millions of people threatened by COVID-19, are in the hands of truly horrible people, a true “white-collar Mafia” whose primary interest is in making money, lots of money, without caring about anything else. Meanwhile, 1,700,00 people have died of this virus worldwide.
Conclusion: leaving the health of the population and the production of medications in the hands of big corporations is the same as asking the wolf to guard the sheep. In the unforeseeable post-pandemic world, it is highly probable that both these things – healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry – go on to become activities managed almost exclusively by publicly-owned state enterprises. The failure of the “magic of the market” in these areas has been monumental, and the behavior of these large corporate executives is immoral and, very possibly according to the laws of some countries, criminal. And the way in which the mass media in Argentina, obsessed with wearing down and if possible overthrowing the government, hides the information showing the criminal nature of these huge pharmaceutical oligopolies, and spotlights the tensions with Pfizer, is no less reprehensible.
Source: Atilio Boron Blog, translation Resumen Latinoamericano, North America bureau