Didn't these companies spend years/decades and billions of dollars researching the technology before the US govt jumped in and gave them some money when covid happened?
I could waste the time googling it but I won't, but I recall seeing somewhere that the covid vaccine was Moderna's first successful formula. MRNA research has been around a while, but it hasn't been successful. Until, again, the US government threw a billion dollars at it.
To be clear: I am 100% in favour of essential and/or prescribed pharmaceuticals being free, or almost free, to their recipients. My objection was very specifically about idiots on Twitter making arguments that don't conform to basic logic and thus rendering those arguments worthless. If they can't understand what your point is and how to make it, it's not worth discussing.
I hear you. And it wasn't meant to be a direct attack on you. I saw the same thing repeated over and over elsewhere, including the replies to the original tweet, and it was simply incorrect. The whole "6 times zero is zero" was wrong right from the start. Whether that was because the OP thought everyone knew the vax wasn't "free" in the first place, or he was being lazy, I don't know. But it doesn't change the fact that Moderna was going to charge multiples of the original cost, which wasn't zero. And getting called to testify to the Senate as to why changed his tune quite quickly.
