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Comment by amalcon | Hacker News Reader

Do we actually believe that "big pharma" (in the form of 3 companies that make US approved vaccines) have greater influence than all of the collective industries that would benefit from a looser mandate (so long as the public trusted it)? Pharma is more influential than the entire service sector, plus most manufacturing, and anything else that functionally requires people to be in the same room?

If you believe they are, then I accept that we have different starting points but your reasoning is compelling under your starting point. If you believe they're not, then I think it makes sense to look for another explanation.

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So you're just going to pretend that the entire media and political establishment (at least in US) as well as many industries (ex. big tech) are not strongly supportive of big pharma when it comes to the vaccines?

Are you going to pretend people are not being actively censored, banned, cancelled, fired for being vaccine-sceptical?

Do you not believe that the extensively-documented mass manipulation of public opinion is a thing?

If this is the fantasy land you want to base your reasoning in, then I accept that we have different starting points but your reasoning is compelling under your starting point.

The media, political establishment (or at least half of it), and other industries are supportive of vaccine mandates. These loose groups of people can indeed influence the public, and are using this ability to promote vaccines. These premises are uncontroversial.

The problem is that some folks are jumping to the conclusion that they are doing this because they want to sacrifice their own interests to increase profits for big pharma. Either this is for an altruistic reason (hah!) or big pharma is actually more powerful than those people (or, maybe, that isn't actually happening).

I know it's comfortable to think that the world's largest economy is entirely under control of three companies, but I see no compelling evidence that this is the case.

have you ever sat through the commercials of American TV news stations? pharma has a directly controlling interest in the media. this should be uncontroversial.

I watched broadcast news in America two days ago, in fact, though it's somewhat unusual (I prefer to read news). I do remember some pharma ads. I also remember ads for retail stores, chain restaurants, and tourism (an amusement park, a cruise line, and a more general "come visit place X").

Even if we presume that advertisers are the only stakeholders (forgetting, let's say, investors), I'd disagree that pharma has a controlling interest in the media.

> These loose groups of people can indeed influence the public, and are using this ability to promote vaccines.

There is nothing loose about the US media and political establishments. If you watch mainstream media with any regularity you'd think it was two departments of one corporation.

> The problem is that some folks are jumping to the conclusion that they are doing this because they want to sacrifice their own interests to increase profits for big pharma.

I didn't see anyone make that claim. There are many extensively documented cases of collusion between government and media. 9/11 coverage, Afghanistan, and Iraq wars, virtually any coverage of foreign adversaries (Russia, China, Iran), vaccines, etc. being some obvious examples.

> I know it's comfortable to think that the world's largest economy is entirely under control of three companies, but I see no compelling evidence that this is the case.

Oh yeah, can't think of anything more comfortable to think of!

I work for "big pharma" - we were one of the companies that tried to make COVID vaccine. We failed - it worked but was not as good as Pfizer and others (though if those didn't work out, ours would still be worth it).

Nobody is disappointed that we didn't succeed. It would be great PR - "company X is saving the world" but it would not make us all that much money, considering how much world governments are paying for COVID vaccines.

I find the claims of big pharma manipulating to selling more vaccines dubious.

Regulatory capture is understood and happens in other industries (e.g. the MIC). Feel is pretty naive if you don't think politicians are willing to incur massive opportunity costs to society at large in order to enrich themselves and the establishment that they essentially work for.

Do we actually believe that "big pharma" (in the form of 3 companies that make US approved vaccines) have greater influence than all of the collective industries

They only need more influence in key places like FDA and CDC, not more influence overall, to push health policies.

The FDA and CDC are not involved in vaccine mandates. Even the coming federal mandate is through OSHA. They issue recommendations, but so do a lot of other influential people and organizations.

That said, this is a real phenomenon and worth bearing in mind when doing this type of reasoning.

"They are not involved" seems like an understatement. Their recommendations are the backbone of all the vaccine policies.

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