VP pence is without shame, trying to give the orange menace credit for Pfizer vaccine

esquared

Forum Director & Omnipotent Overlord
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Pfizer was part of Warp Speed but never took any government money.

Pfizer shot back with this:



"Dr Kathrin Jansen, Pfizer’s head of vaccine development, told the New York Times: “We were never part of the Warp Speed ... We have never taken any money from the US government, or from anyone.”
Pfizer later clarified that they were considered “part” of Warp Speed, because the US government had placed an order for a potential vaccine. But they received no funding for its development, unlike their rivals.
"
 

trenchfoot

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
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Asshole shithead glory grabbers to the very end.........and beyond.

Who'da thunk, huh?

Watch these fvckers try to rewrite history in their favor 'til the end of time.
 

hal2kilo

Lifer
Feb 24, 2009
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Pfizer was part of Warp Speed but never took any government money.

Pfizer shot back with this:



"Dr Kathrin Jansen, Pfizer’s head of vaccine development, told the New York Times: “We were never part of the Warp Speed ... We have never taken any money from the US government, or from anyone.”
Pfizer later clarified that they were considered “part” of Warp Speed, because the US government had placed an order for a potential vaccine. But they received no funding for its development, unlike their rivals.
"
Just saw an interview with a guy, I think Italian accent, (Pfiizer spokesperson) say exactly the same thing.
 
Feb 4, 2009
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I read about an odd tweet from Pence earlier. Something about never give up! Fight on! regarding the election.
Seemed kind of low brow and out of character for Pence. I wonder if a Trump staffer got access to Pence’s twitter account.
 

Bitek

Lifer
Aug 2, 2001
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Yep. They've been claiming credit for stuff they've had nothing to do for quite some time.

Meanwhile, they are MIA on the things that should be doing.
 
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Bitek

Lifer
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As encouraging as the news is, what's not being discussed is just how difficult manufacture, distribution and administration of this vaccine will be.

It's a mRNA vaccine, which will be the first time this technology will be used at this level. The problem being that mRNA is terribly unstable and RNA destroying enzymes (RNAses) are commonly found on surfaces and your own skin.

This vaccine is only stable for 24hrs at refrigerator temps, so it must remain deep frozen at -80c throughout it's distribution chain up to administration.

It's going to take techniques, infrastructure and training that we don't have in order to do this out on a large enough scale.

Let's hope another vaccine candidate also shows success or this will be a bitch.
 
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MtnMan

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Jul 27, 2004
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cAG4aLh.jpg
 

WelshBloke

Lifer
Jan 12, 2005
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It's going to take techniques, infrastructure and training that we don't have in order to do this out on a large enough scale.

If only the were something national that could help with health care stuff and service the population.
 

Viper GTS

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
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I'm no fan of the Trump admin but the money that has been thrown at vaccine manufacturers is one thing that I'm in full support of.

It's slightly disingenuous to suggest that a guaranteed order of nearly $2B is not taking money from Warp Speed.

At least some credit is due here IMO.

Viper GTS
 

uallas5

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Jun 3, 2005
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I'm no fan of the Trump admin but the money that has been thrown at vaccine manufacturers is one thing that I'm in full support of.

It's slightly disingenuous to suggest that a guaranteed order of nearly $2B is not taking money from Warp Speed.

At least some credit is due here IMO.

Viper GTS

The money from pre-sales for a vaccine they were already developing irrespective of said sales is the point Pfizer is making. Pfizer didn't particularly care what program the US was using to allocate the money. Pfizer only accepted the order from the US when the US agreed that all the doses Pfizer provided would be given in the US for free.
 

Bitek

Lifer
Aug 2, 2001
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If only the were something national that could help with health care stuff and service the population.

We'll see. Unless the NHS can conjure up deep freezers and massive amounts of dry ice itself, they will still be limited to what's on the market place. That means taking supplies from science labs, hospitals and other science/pharmaceutical companies, or any other industrial manufacturer that uses dry ice or small deep freezers as part of their process.

Overall it's a funky product and only has real commercial viability in the present situation.

There are vaccine candidates in phase III trials without such logistical burdens. Let's see how fast they are and what happens if they show safety & efficacy and get approved.
 

Mai72

Lifer
Sep 12, 2012
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Pence is thinking about the future, so he's going to be in Trump's corner until the very end. Think about it. Even when Trump leaves office he will have a TON of political influence. If Pence wants to run on his own he will need Trump's backing. If Trump is like "Pence stood by me, and he's a great guy" Pence will garner a lot of votes.
 

Moonbeam

Elite Member
Nov 24, 1999
73,231
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The way the shameless in the US typically feign self respect is by a fictional desplay of Christian identity. But far from the self effacing and innocence a real Christian would radiate, we see instead a mechanically fixed display of moral superiority and puffery. In short they walk like they have a stick up their ass. "Look at me. I'm a really serious guy. No shame here."

Like they can fool people who know what it's like to be them.
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,235
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I'm no fan of the Trump admin but the money that has been thrown at vaccine manufacturers is one thing that I'm in full support of.

It's slightly disingenuous to suggest that a guaranteed order of nearly $2B is not taking money from Warp Speed.

At least some credit is due here IMO.

Viper GTS
I agree. Warp Speed is basically the only thing useful Trump has ever done.

But I'm also old to remember him and other Republicans being against the initial COVID funding that included funding for vaccines.

The thing Warp Speed did though was give everyone a specific and direct goal. Similar to JFK and the moon goal. And it did change the narrative from no less than 18 months to "probably won't be before the election."

I actually remember the day warp speed was announced, I had just been reading a lot of nay saying articles by qualified people. And I'd been bitching to my wife and friends about how we needed a goal and the might of the government to push it.
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
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We'll see. Unless the NHS can conjure up deep freezers and massive amounts of dry ice itself, they will still be limited to what's on the market place. That means taking supplies from science labs, hospitals and other science/pharmaceutical companies, or any other industrial manufacturer that uses dry ice or small deep freezers as part of their process.

Overall it's a funky product and only has real commercial viability in the present situation.

There are vaccine candidates in phase III trials without such logistical burdens. Let's see how fast they are and what happens if they show safety & efficacy and get approved.
Are you sure it's -80? I thought it was -40.

Dry ice and liquid nitrogen aren't that hard to come by. I thought deep freeze was very common in hospitals and imaging labs. Also carbon fiber for aviation is shipped and stored in deep freeze, so there is infrastructure around.

I routinely run tests down to -65 usually using liquid nitrogen to cool the test cells.
 

trenchfoot

Lifer
Aug 5, 2000
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Are you sure it's -80? I thought it was -40.

Dry ice and liquid nitrogen aren't that hard to come by. I thought deep freeze was very common in hospitals and imaging labs. Also carbon fiber for aviation is shipped and stored in deep freeze, so there is infrastructure around.

I routinely run tests down to -65 usually using liquid nitrogen to cool the test cells.


We use liquid nitrogen for defense industry purposes. It's been getting more difficult to acquire and the cost of the stuff has more than doubled in the last few months. Don't know how that's going to affect the deployment of the vaccine or if it's just a local supply matter, just thinking out loud how the availability/scarcity of LN might affect the logistics side of the equation.
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
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We use liquid nitrogen for defense industry purposes. It's been getting more difficult to acquire and the cost of the stuff has more than doubled in the last few months. Don't know how that's going to affect the deployment of the vaccine or if it's just a local supply matter, just thinking out loud how the availability/scarcity of LN might affect the logistics side of the equation.
This is just like the dry ice shortage. There is a ton of dry ice, it just needs to be redirected from Omaha Steaks to Pfizer. Something the DPA was specifically designed to do.

I hadn't heard about LN2 getting more expensive lately, but vaccines will take priority over nitro ice cream, dippin' dots and a whole host of other things LN2 is used for that are less important that thousands of deaths a day. Nice thing about LN2 is the raw material is floating around us all the time. I see tankers of it on the road all the time too, nothing like getting a hold of liquid helium. LN2 might be going up in price because the government is buying it up for distribution, who knows.

From what I found Pfizer is -70C, while Moderna is -20C. The -20C should be easily handled by existing cold transportation and storage. -70C is pushing what I've normally seen, but not by a lot.

Interesting article: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea...us-vaccines-need-to-be-stored-at-15711275.php

According to it you can get 5 days in a refrigerator and 2 days room temp. This is no small task, but I do think it is peanuts compared to the rest of the process.

Edit: I've been in aerospace for too long, I keep seeing things like "Ultra cold freezer are very expensive, $10,000-15,000!!!" And think "That's it?" That's a couple engine mount bolts. Even when I worked at a bankrupt airline, a single engineer could authorize spending more than that with no approvals.
 
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esquared

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Ultra lows(-80C) are expensive just for having a couple in a lab.
I bought a couple for my lab I worked about 10 years ago for 7K each. They now look to be 10K plus for a 20 cu ft model.
I wonder how big their own freezers need to be just for vaccine storage.

The Moderna mRNA vaccine seems only required to be stored at standard -20C so that would be less of a challenge for
storage and transport.

"Pfizer’s vaccine will almost certainly be the first to be authorized by the FDA. But it’s also going to be the hardest one to use.
The vaccine has to be shipped and stored at ultra-cold temperatures, -94 Fahrenheit (-70 Celsius). That requirement will limit
where the vaccine can be used. Moderna’s mRNA vaccine must be stored at -4 F (-20 C), which is not ideal, but not quite as challenging."

Lyophilization would extend the life of a vaccine plus ease the temperature requirements. (2-8C) But that would take time to research and I don't
know if that a possibility for a mRNA vaccine, stability wise.


"
 

Zorba

Lifer
Oct 22, 1999
15,235
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Ultra lows(-80C) are expensive just for having a couple in a lab.
I bought a couple for my lab I worked about 10 years ago for 7K each. They now look to be 10K plus for a 20 cu ft model.
I wonder how big their own freezers need to be just for vaccine storage.

The Moderna mRNA vaccine seems only required to be stored at standard -20C so that would be less of a challenge for
storage and transport.

"Pfizer’s vaccine will almost certainly be the first to be authorized by the FDA. But it’s also going to be the hardest one to use.
The vaccine has to be shipped and stored at ultra-cold temperatures, -94 Fahrenheit (-70 Celsius). That requirement will limit
where the vaccine can be used. Moderna’s mRNA vaccine must be stored at -4 F (-20 C), which is not ideal, but not quite as challenging."

Lyophilization would extend the life of a vaccine plus ease the temperature requirements. (2-8C) But that would take time to research and I don't
know if that a possibility for a mRNA vaccine, stability wise.


"
10K is a lot for a research lab working on grants. That is nothing if it supports vaccinating thousands of people, though. I mean, hell, if it offsets half a day in the ICU for one person it paid for itself.
 
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