Milkshake Ducks - The official thread of falling from grace
- Thread starter GasBandit
- Start date
He literally just googled "Pfizer lawsuit" and posted the first link that came up.
To be fair...Big Pharma in general is a force for both good and evil in the world. They develop necessary medication, such as the Covid vaccine and a whole host of cancer drugs and AIDS inhibitors and you name it. but they're also absolute money machines who would like to see nothing better than have everyone take a pill to wake up, a pill to fall asleep, a pill to be focussed at work, a pill to relax and unwind, a pill to feel happy and a pill to get through the day.
The life partner of one of my colleagues works at Pfizer, and....well, their corporate vision really isn't any better than the folks who brought you the Oxycodon abuse epidemic. etc.
They're more or less a necessary evil.
Mind that I haven't had time to read full articles or twitter threads so I don't know how off the rails this guy goes but....Callign Pfizer evil wouldn't have made anyone bat an eye in mid-2019. On the contrary, the defenders of Big Pharma would've been considered the weirdoes.
The life partner of one of my colleagues works at Pfizer, and....well, their corporate vision really isn't any better than the folks who brought you the Oxycodon abuse epidemic. etc.
They're more or less a necessary evil.
Mind that I haven't had time to read full articles or twitter threads so I don't know how off the rails this guy goes but....Callign Pfizer evil wouldn't have made anyone bat an eye in mid-2019. On the contrary, the defenders of Big Pharma would've been considered the weirdoes.
figmentPez
Staff member
He linked to a settlement about unlawful/unethical marketing of opioids. Which is something that should be criticized, and I doubt that it's the only skeleton in Pfizer's closet. They're probably price fixing on any number of life-saving medications, and engaging in all sorts of immoral, unethical, and outright illegal business practices.
I'm not sure they're a threat to the world because of that, though. The entire medical industry is really fucked up in America, and elsewhere, but it it also employs a lot of people who are doing their best to create medicine to make lives better.
What Mr. Levi said is a really stupid thing to say, especially when the name Pfizer is currently most associated with vaccines, but there's still some possibility that he's just being hyperbolic with the "threat to the world" stuff, and just means that they're a business that does shitty capitalistic things to exploit the market and harms a great number of people in the process.
GasBandit
Staff member
Yeah, the optics aren't great, but I do think it's important to remember that big Pharma is still largely a malevolent global force, even if it did produce the COVID vaccine. That was just a nice window where their capitalistic goals aligned with our survival goals, for once.
...Or can they?!?
It's also worth noting that most of the basic research for this was done with public funds, mostly by a Polish immigrant that started her work back in Poland and was basically the laughing stock of her department for years because no one thought mRNA research was worth anything. Then Pfizer used the publicly available knowledge to make it's vaccine.
You also can't sell drugs to healthy / cured people. That is why this shit can be so infurating. There is no profit motive for actual health, only bare minimum survival.
As someone who works very closely with the pharmaceutical industry, that's just not true. Thousands of people, including scientists, researchers, doctors, marketing people, and management are involved with these companies, and nobody is at the whims of a handful of moustache twirling grifters that are only in it for the profits.
Plus, fortunately, there are still anti-price-gouging methods at play, like those that brought down Martin Shkreli when he tried to gouge for one particular curing drug.
They're trying to do the same for this insulin sham, and hopefully that holds up as well (effectively, they keep changing the formula for insulin very slightly every few years so they can keep it proprietary), but in general the optics are super bad at holding back cures for people, so it's not a real issue, only a pointless conspiracy theory.
This is also why I don't understand the anti-vax argument that it's all about money...there isn't money in vaccines, it's all sold at cost and formulas are publicly held so there isn't any proprietary bullshit. Even Moderna, who is trying to price gouge on their COVID vaccine, is going to get shut down in court because of all the public money that went into development.
Hey, I hope you right man, but considering what drugs cost in this country compared to anywhere else in the world, I don't see a lot of evidence that drug companies around here are only doing it out of the goodness of their hearts. I know many of the doctors and scientists that develop these drugs do just want to help people, but they are not the ones spending over half the budget just on advertising the latest drug that they sell for hundreds on the dollar.
Nobody's saying the companies are altruistic, there are miles of space between " purposely keeping people sick to make money" and "curing everyone out of the goodness of their hearts". Publicizing the medical industry would do wonders, as most of the costs are due to the sheer number of middle men taking their share between the patient and the medicine or treatment, and it's purposefully obfuscated to maximize profits, which sucks, but companies are definitely not holding back cures and cure research to cash in.
figmentPez
Staff member
Davidangel64 of "X's Adventures in Minecraft" is a JK Rowling apologist who thinks she speaks "common sense" about transgender issues.
His commentary in his videos has also been growing kinda misogynstic and MRA leaning.
His commentary in his videos has also been growing kinda misogynstic and MRA leaning.
God dammit. His stuff is how I got into Minecraft.
This... actually doesn't come as a complete shock to me. I enjoyed watching his original X's Adventures and the occasional Starcraft commentary back in the day, but I remember there being a couple times he'd say something and, while I don't remember it being anything really bad, it kind left a blip on the radar, you know what I mean?
GasBandit
Staff member
Same. Or anyone from Worst Premade Ever, but they seem to be pretty safe (and generally wear their politics openly)
It's old news but I was disappointed when Jontron fell.
‘Dilbert’ Cartoon Dropped From Many News Outlets Over Creator Scott Adams’ Racial Remarks
Controversial remarks by '"'Dilbert'"' creator Scott Adams has seen many news outlets dropping the cartoon.
deadline.com
--Patrick
About damn time.Looks like the other shoe finally dropped.‘Dilbert’ Cartoon Dropped From Many News Outlets Over Creator Scott Adams’ Racial Remarks
Controversial remarks by '"'Dilbert'"' creator Scott Adams has seen many news outlets dropping the cartoon.
--Patrick
figmentPez
Staff member
How many shoes is that now?
Enough to force a bunch more outlets who were still running the strip to stop holding their nose and do something.
—Patrick
figmentPez
Staff member
Watch out for that last sentence, it's a doozy.
He's right, he lost 3 careers to racism...his own racism.
Scott Adams affects me differently than JK Rowling, as I feel like I can still enjoy Harry Potter stuff while acknowledging Rowling is garbage, because Rowling as a person doesn't really color the world she originally created.
Adams, on the other hand, makes me embarrassed I ever enjoyed Dilbert comics and threw away all the Dilbert stuff I ever had.
Adams, on the other hand, makes me embarrassed I ever enjoyed Dilbert comics and threw away all the Dilbert stuff I ever had.
figmentPez
Staff member
