QUICK READ: Some deaths will occur during the COVID-19 vaccination rollout, but these deaths would have happened for other reasons and are unrelated to the vaccine. Vaccine-hesitant groups are peddling misinformation online and conspiracy theories aimed at eroding trust in the COVID-19 vaccine are everywhere forcing people to conduct more research.
QUICK THOUGHT: People believe the COVID-19 vaccine was developed in less than a year but that’s not true. Coronaviruses were first encountered in April 1930, when a strange respiratory disease ravaged poultry farms across North Dakota and Minnesota, killing tens of thousands of baby birds. Further scientific research into the virus and recognition that it was not like influenza A, a flu virus known to cause bronchitis, would transpire over the next 30 years.
QUICK READ: The compensation for pharma CEOs is starting to be reported and it’s off the charts. Bob Bradway of Amgen bagged a $20.1 million compensation package in 2020, a slight increase from his $19.6 million total the previous year. Pfizer CEO Bourla’s Pay Climbed 17% to $21 Million in 2020 and Gilead Sciences CEO Daniel O’Day earned a $19 million take home. This has to end.
QUICK READ: The nation’s largest for-profit hospital chains saw higher profits, and some more than tripled their net income compared to last year. Some are also increasing their profit margins by forcing out healthcare staff who have seniority and earn more. As bigger corporations acquire smaller hospitals, this trend is accelerating.
IN BRIEF: At some point, we need to realize that good health is our personal responsibility. All prescription drugs don’t make us healthy; they just mask a potentially unhealthy lifestyle that eventually will cost patients and our healthcare system a lot of money, time, and pain.
SUMMARY: Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca publicly committed to not profiting off their products during the pandemic; Pfizer and Moderna made no such pledge and are already planning ways to make more money from their Covid vaccines.
SUMMARY: Television remains the most important medium for healthcare advertising, accounting for 54.7% of all spend in 2018, far higher than television’s 30.8% share of the advertising market as a whole. However, recent trends indicate that healthcare marketers are shifting more dollars to digital ads. The shift to digital advertising doesn’t make sense when pharma product websites don’t meet consumers’ needs.
SUMMARY: The goal of business is to maximize profits for shareholder returns but when a company that serves the public good pays CEOs millions of dollars in compensation while having among the highest profit margins within ANY industry I would argue that something is dreadfully wrong.
