Comment by theferalrobot | Hacker News Reader

Comment by theferalrobot | Hacker News Reader

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That is because it is a completely unsubstantiated piece of news 'leaked' to appeal to European prejudices and thus increase CoreVac's negotiating power.

The idea that Donald Trump would be the person making an offer to the CEO of a tiny startup for a non-existent, as yet, vaccine should trigger alarm bells, as that's not how these negotiations work, at all.

If you want to understand how these things actually work, read this article:

https://www.fiercebiotech.com/medtech/fda-grants-roche-coron...

Additionally, US government officials are on the record stating that any discoveries would be shared with the world. Plenty of governments are providing funding to labs all over the world, this is not unusual behavior.

> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...

I think you have the wrong article. The one I was talking about was from reuters and was officially confirmed by the german government.

Right, the german government confirmed that the US was trying to secure an interest in a german company, not that they were trying to get exclusive access. The reuters report even says as I quoted before:

> The U.S. government has spoken with many (more than 25) companies that claim they can help with a vaccine. Most of these companies already received seed funding from U.S. investors... any solution found would be shared with the world

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-german...

Fair enough, so why was that particular article flagged on HN?

I imagine because 1) discussion was propagating false information and 2) devolving into political infighting which is not allowed here.

I think you're the one who first propagated the idea in this thread that the US was doing this for exclusive access, not me.

We're getting off topic. You agreed that the reuters article was fair. If not then don't use it in your argument. It was this article that got removed.

You are spreading a conspiracy theory. Please stop.

I never said the US was trying to buy it for exclusive access, if that is the conspiracy theory you're alluding to. You need to bring it up with the one I replied to. They were making those claims, not me.

It's called a strawman's argument. You falsely claim something your opponent said and before you know it, everyone believes it.

>I never said the US was trying to buy it for exclusive access

You didn't personally, but the article you posted did.

The grandparent of your comment wasn't made from the same account as yours, so unless you use multiple accounts, I was not referring to you.

The conspiracy theory is that the German government conspired to spread a lie.

>The conspiracy theory is that the German government conspired to spread a lie.

Are you on the wrong post? I never said they were spreading lies?

The only thing the German government did was confirm they and the US government were both in negotiations with CoreVac. They did NOT state that the US was looking for exclusive rights.

None of this goes against my initial post that this is a completely unsubstantiated article.

Edit: You can't cite the news as your source for the news, especially when the news itself says it is unconfirmed.

I quote from the article: "US President Trump is attempting to entice a German lab to develop a vaccine exclusively for the US, a German newspaper reported."

You are sharing the conspiracy theory that the Trump administration did not in fact try to secure exclusive access to the vaccine.

I don’t think you understand the term conspiracy theory nor do you understand how the burden of proof works.

I have already given many credible sources showing why your claim is false, the hacker news mods have removed these articles multiple times (including this very post). You have provided an unsubstantiated claim with no evidence. An extraordinary claim requires extraordinary evidence.

Here is a source that might be more acceptable for your palate: https://www.politico.eu/article/germany-confirms-that-donald...

Which is reporting on the initial article which again just states that Germany said the US was trying to invest in the company, not that they were looking for an exclusive arrangement. Show me where Germany confirmed that the US was looking for an exclusive arrangement, we have multiple people saying this was not the case.

That's not what is said in the article of politico. Here is what is reported:

First, The allegation:

According to the article, Trump was trying to get the Tübingen-based CureVac company — which also has sites in Frankfurt and Boston — to move its research wing to the United States and develop the vaccine "for the U.S. only."

Then, the government acknowledgement:

A spokesperson for Germany's Health Ministry quoted in the article appeared to acknowledge the U.S. approach and said that Berlin was "very interested in ensuring that vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus are also developed in Germany and Europe."

Who says this is incorrect? The alleged party? Because the company did not deny that it was approached by the US American government to sell exclusive access. It just denied that it will be bought, which is a different thing. Regarding the exclusivity it has declared that it will ensure that the vaccine will be available to the world, without neither confirming nor denying the allegation. The fact that they clarify that (source: https://www.curevac.com/news/curevac-focuses-on-the-developm...) the fact that the German government acted at all (multiple reports of that exist), and the fact that the CEO of the company was fired (the company has a press release about it) after meeting Trump are further evidence that indeed an exclusive deal was sought.

I know it's way too late but the majority shareholder of that company confirmed your interpretation in an interview.

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