The Pomp Podcast - #780 The Economics Behind Vaccinations w/ Dr. Peter McCullough

Starting point is 00:00:00 what's up everyone this is anthony pompliano most of you know me as pomp you're listening to the pomp podcast simply the best podcast out there now let's kick this thing off dr peter mccullough is an american cardiologist he previously was the vice chief of internal medicine at baylor university medical center and a professor at texas a&m university dr mccullough has become well known in the internet circles for speaking out against many of the well-held consensus around COVID-19, the vaccine, and various other aspects of public health over the last two years. Dr. McCullough joined me in a conversation to specifically talk about the capitalistic pursuits of vaccine manufacturers, including who is making money, how much,

Starting point is 00:00:46 and why is that important as part of the public health conversation. I really enjoyed this conversation with Dr. McCullough, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. Today's episode is sponsored by the Bitcoin 2022 conference. Bitcoin 2022 is the largest Bitcoin event in the world that takes place April 6th through the 9th in Miami Beach, Florida. All four days will be jam packed with exclusive content, exciting announcements and an incredible lineup of Bitcoin speakers, artists and leaders. Day one is industry day for enterprising Bitcoiners who are looking to build a business or career within the ecosystem. Days two and three are general conference days featuring

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Starting point is 00:04:06 Again, go download Brave at brave.com slash pomp and click the wallet icon to get started. Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only. We have Dr. McCullough ready with us now. Doctor, are you there? Yes, I am. Thanks for having me on. Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. I know that we don't have a ton of time, but what I wanted to talk to you today

Starting point is 00:04:46 about is there's a lot of conversation right now around public health policy, around vaccines, the efficacy, et cetera. But one of the things that has gone largely unspoken about is the business behind the vaccine or kind of the capitalism and how that overlays with public policy. And some of the numbers, as I was researching to talk to you, were just eye popping, right? The vaccine manufacturers are making $65,000 per minute in profit. Some of these businesses are saying that in 2021, they've made, you know, 20, $35 billion off of sales of this. And so maybe just to start, give me your understanding of kind of how the business of the vaccine really plays out and how important that is to how the vaccine is rolled out and really

Starting point is 00:05:33 who gets it, who doesn't, and kind of who ends up being the winners and losers in all of this. Well, thanks for having me on. For those of you I haven't met, I'm Dr. Peter McCullough. I'm a practicing internist, cardiologist. I'm trained in epidemiology, and I've been very involved in the pandemic response clinically, but also in performing original research and reviewing data. You know, frequently a commentator on the national TV systems, and it's a pleasure to be on. It's important for everybody to understand that the vaccine manufacturers had their development costs covered by the U.S. government in an accelerated fashion to bring these products through Operation Warp Speed. So they had no development costs, and they also didn't have any marketing

Starting point is 00:06:14 costs. Normally, the company has to produce a product and then market it and get it FDA-approved. It went through what's called the Emergency Use Authorization Mechanism. So they bypassed all those costs, and so they are set up to reap record profits. I would point you to a book, COVID-19 and the Global Predators, We Are the Prey by Dr. Peter Bregan and Ginger Bregan, they really outlined the complex web of connections between the pharmaceutical industry, the U.S. government, various stakeholders, Gates Foundation, Gavi, Zepi, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Chinese government. But it's a complicated web of which there are a few individuals and certainly a few companies that are profiting massively. Got it. And so when you think about

Starting point is 00:07:00 this. One thing that I don't think I understood is the actual development costs themselves are being covered by the U.S. government. And so essentially, is it fair to think about majority of the revenue that these manufacturers are pulling in? That's basically profit, right? If the R&D costs aren't there, then maybe there's a little bit on the distribution costs. But other than that, most of this is just pure profit to their bottom line. That's true. I mean, have to produce the product and then distribute it to the uh the eua sites for administration but they don't have any marketing costs sometimes for a drug half of the cost is marketing uh and then you know they don't have to get insurance approvals or any of those things it's just it's

Starting point is 00:07:40 just pure uh money coming in they're all pre-purchased the products are all pre-purchased so this is uh in a sense money in the bank but america should be hawkish on conflict of interest So, for example, former FDA commissioner and now Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb is on CNBC every morning advising America on pandemic response. He ought to be off TV. He's got a huge conflict of interest. He is profitably profiting from vaccines. Former FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, who really worked greatly to actually hurt early treatment and block early treatment, He's now gone to the venture capital firm that funds Moderna. The National Institutes of Health co-owns a patent for the COVID-19 vaccine with Moderna. And then Rick Bright, who was in the White House, who blocked hydroxychloroquine to patients,

Starting point is 00:08:35 he's joined the Rockefeller Foundation, which has been a stalwart for eugenics and vaccine research for decades. I mean, America should be looking at this conflict of interest here and be outraged. Yeah. And I think also, what is it, the Reuters CEO, the former CEO of Reuters is also on the Pfizer board. There's a whole bunch of folks who, whether they actively have conflicts or kind of historical positions of power and influence, obviously are involved here. Bringing it back to some of the math around the business of this, the numbers that we were able to find in the research is that Moderna, according to its second quarter earnings report, They projected about 19.2 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales for 2021. For Pfizer, their second quarter earnings report forecasted 2021 sales of the COVID-19 vaccine to be 33.5 billion. And then Johnson & Johnson, they estimated full year vaccine sales to be 2.5 billion.

Starting point is 00:09:28 Now, when you add all of that up, we're talking, you know, it's called 50 to 60 billion of these vaccine sales. as you so eloquently described, they basically will have majority of that become profit because of the lack of R&D and also the lack of having to actually market this. Now, what I found fascinating as we were researching this though, is that in most non-developed nations,

Starting point is 00:09:49 there are still levels of 90 plus percent of people who are unvaccinated. So majority of these vaccines are actually going to develop nations where they're able to drive a much higher price. And there's been some lack of interest, if you will, in actually taking the vaccine and giving it over to some of these public-private partnerships or people like the World Health Organization

Starting point is 00:10:07 who could help distribute it more effectively globally, which would ultimately drive that price down, which leads to less revenue. So can you talk a little bit about how your understanding is of people selecting where are they going to sell these vaccines and why is it that maybe it's being concentrated in developed nations versus some of these other places? It's interesting you point that out. There seems to be also a plan from the beginning to suppress early treatment for COVID-19 in the developed nations, including the United States, Canada, some South American countries, Britain, the EU, South Africa and Australia. Those are the countries that have been starved of early treatment.

Starting point is 00:10:44 And those markets, if you will, have been prepped for mass vaccination. Whereas other markets around the equator, for instance, you know, they hand out treatment packets for COVID-19. They get people through COVID-19 easily because it's such a treatable illness. And they have been, in a sense, not prized as a market for best vaccination. And the vaccines really have underperformed. We have data now from YoungJu showing that coverage for Delta, it was published in JAMA, was only 20%. And now we have a paper by Hansen and the UK report,

Starting point is 00:11:19 the overall public report, showing basically no effectiveness against Omicron. So it's pretty clear. Analysis by Subramanian and colleagues have shown the vaccines have made no impact globally on the pandemic and it's come to us at a giant cost for really no benefit. I've got two of my brothers here that they have questions as well. Very quickly, Joe and John, what questions do you guys have for Dr. McCullough? Dr. McCullough, thanks for coming on today. One of my questions would just be around FDA approval. I know you've mentioned previously that these vaccines were not FDA approved and there's been some things in the news, specifically even up to the White House, where they said these vaccines were FDA approved. Can you just talk a little bit about the confusion there? On August 23rd, Pfizer met in a closed meeting with the FDA. There was no advisory panel, no external experts there to watch or take minutes or present.

Starting point is 00:12:06 But what came out of that meeting was a continuation of the emergency use authorization to Pfizer. So Pfizer was not approved by the FDA. And then there was a biological licensing agreement assigned to BioNTech, a German partner, for their vaccine. But that application must have a commitment to post-marketing studies, many post-marketing studies about myocardial injury after the vaccines, heart injury, myocarditis, special language about safety in pregnancy. And so if BioNTech wants to move forward with a product, if the German company wants to enter the U.S. market, they have to do all that and commit to that. They have to write a package insert, and then BioNTech would have to, you know, produce a product and distribute it in the United States. That hasn't happened. So Pfizer is still under the emergency use authorization.

Starting point is 00:12:54 Americans know Pfizer is not approved because the consent form didn't change. And insurance companies don't have to approve it. Insurance companies are not paying for it. It's still the same old Pfizer, and the consent forms simply say that we don't know if this is going to work and we don't know if it's safe. The consent forms are asking Americans to participate in research. And that's what the emergency use authorization is. So there was a false talking point that came out of that meeting and went all the way up to the president of the United States who said that Pfizer was approved when it was not. And, you know, within seven days, Dr. Gruber, who signed the letter for BioNTech, the, you know, the high ranking vaccine regulatory official, she resigned. So if that tells you anything. John, what questions you got? Yeah, thank you for joining us, Dr. McCullough. So my question is around the testing, right?

Starting point is 00:13:38 So we've seen places like Kroger and Walgreens, they've actually increased the price of their tests from $14 to $24. In your professional opinion, is that just based on supply and demand or is there a bigger thing going on there? It's supply and demand. Everyone's got COVID-19 now.

Starting point is 00:13:51 I think almost all my patients do. There's almost complete capitulation. We heard reports out of California yesterday that even if people test positive, they should show up to work anyway, because it's just, it's so ubiquitous now. So what I'm telling my patients, if I have a high risk senior citizen,

Starting point is 00:14:07 I'm really wanting to know if it's COVID or not, I'll have them get tested, but we should be doing zero tests on people without symptoms because it's just, it's never been FDA approved to do that. It's not supported by any of the science. It's not supported by WHO or CDC. That means all the testing in schools

Starting point is 00:14:24 or employers making people do tests once a week, travel, crossing the border, All that needs to stop immediately. It's a giant waste of testing. We know when people are asymptomatic and they test positive, 97% of the time it's a false positive. That's what's going on in the NFL, the NBA, all the sports teams, NHL right now, is they're just generating tons of test results and having people quarantined for no reason. The CDC finally capitulated on that, too, and said even if you test positive, you can go to a five-day quarantine period, and that's if you're asymptomatic. We've gone ahead and extended that to clinically patients with COVID-19 illness, provided the last two days they don't have a fever or severe symptoms. So I think a lot of this is just breaking down with Omicron. Omicron is so ubiquitous. It doesn't respond to the vaccines.

Starting point is 00:15:16 Everyone's getting it. it broke through natural immunity. It broke through vaccine immunity. Uh, and it's like getting a, it's like getting a common cold. And then Dr. Mercola, one of our last questions for you is, uh, one of the jokes on the internet. Uh, and I always like to say that like the memes on the internet or the message, it's a way that society is expressing, uh, kind of what, what they're thinking, uh, is that a lot of these, uh, vaccine manufacturers are essentially creating vaccine as a subscription service, right? You subscribe to Netflix and then you're going to subscribe. And there just seems to always be another shot, another boost or another thing

Starting point is 00:15:46 that that we get. How do you think about kind of capitalistic incentives, which obviously, if there was some sort of vaccine subscription, obviously, that would be an incredible boom for these types of businesses as a trade off with public health and actually what, you know, science and doctors are saying, are those two things completely at odds with each other? Or is there a world where the capitalism can, you know, kind of run wild, but also we can serve individuals correctly from like a public health standpoint? You know, if they were injections that, you know, reduce the chances of heart disease or cause weight loss or reduced blood pressure, cholesterol, something like that, you could

Starting point is 00:16:27 think there's some value to them. But if it's injections that are occurring once a month, and they're genetic transfer technology platforms, they don't stop COVID-19, they don't stop transmission, and they have safety concerns, including immediate death, urgent care visits, ER visits, permanent disability. Boy, this is the worst subscription service you'd ever want to have. People don't want to subscribe to monthly or every three-month or six-month injections against your will. I don't know anybody who wants that. I'm calling for the vaccine mandates to be dropped. I think these products ought to be paused completely, pull them off the market. We need to analyze why they failed, what's causing all these deaths and

Starting point is 00:17:10 injuries, and then look for the newer vaccines. I think the Novavax vaccine looks far better, far safer, just a protein-based vaccine, like a tetanus shot. And so our seniors, people in nursing homes, elderly, nursing home workers, they may need a booster. Everybody else is off the table now. So they pretty much have had COVID-19 or the Omicron, in a sense, Omicron's mother nature's booster. Got it. And so we'll let you go after this, but I think if I had to summarize kind of your viewpoint right is you're not uh anti-vaccine you're not anti-science you're not kind of any of these things instead you're saying look there's a way to do this and do it correctly uh that both has a trade-off of like keeping people safe not overreaching from uh kind

Starting point is 00:17:50 of a personal liberty standpoint and also uh allows for scientists doctors health care professionals to study the impact of things that they're actually giving to people and so is it fair to kind of say that you are a rational pro-vaccine? Hey, if they work and they're done correctly, then like, yes, this is like a no brainer for society. But at the same time, we shouldn't just blindly run after any single solution that people put forward. Like, is that kind of a fair way to describe how you view this? I think you said it quite fairly. You know, I'm a physician scientist. I have over 650 publications in the National Library of Medicine. I'm one of the most published doctors that you'd ever have on TV or on the media that any American would see. I personally

Starting point is 00:18:31 have taken all the vaccines, evidence-based vaccines. I haven't taken the COVID vaccine because I've already had it. And now I've had Omicron. So I would have been excluded from the trials. About 70% of my patients took the vaccines early on before we knew about the safety problem. So I'm definitely not anti-vaccine. I'm very pro-science because I publish science. That's what I do. I'm the editor of a major journal, and I've been very careful with America. I cite the data. I cite the literature. I haven't made major errors in my predictions, and people rely on me and U.S. Senate as well as State Senate testimony to guide the country. So if there is a safer vaccine out there that could be applied to our nursing home residents, and if severe illness

Starting point is 00:19:13 still affects them, then I'm all for it. But Pfizer, Moderna, J&J, and AstraZeneca, they basically have failed, then they need to get pulled off the market. Awesome. Well, listen, Dr. McCullough, I know that you're very busy, so I appreciate you taking the time today to come on and talk through this with us. You know, my big takeaways from this conversation, frankly, are these large manufacturers, they got all the R&D costs covered by government funds. There's, you know, near zero marketing costs associated with it. And these are big, you know, revenue numbers that also have very high profit margins. And so regardless of what people think about the actual efficacy or should they take it should they not whatever that's up for them to decide but there's a lot of money

Starting point is 00:19:50 being made here and as you you know articulated there's there's a lot of conflicts of interest and maybe you can't resolve those but it's worth people at least understanding kind of how the world works where money's flowing and uh and what those conflicts are so i appreciate your time today and uh just keep up the good work there's a lot of people counting on you okay thank you guys all right sounds good doctor thank you

The Pomp Podcast - #780 The Economics Behind Vaccinations w/ Dr. Peter McCullough

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