Would you believe the USDA had SIXTY government labs working on bird flu vaccines? Would you believe vaccine approval was given to Zoetis instead?

Photo above - Police seize 250 roosters at an illegal California cockfight. 33 people were detained, including "cockers" (rooster impresarios) Jose Adame and Carlos Romero, who also had semi- automatic weapons . . .

I was ready to start ranting when I read the headline: “USDA scientists working on bird flu being laid off” (see UPI link below).

Then I saw ANOTHER link. Zoetis, a spinoff of Pfizer has been approved to manufacture and distribute the bird flu vaccine they’ve been working on for more than a year. (see second link).

Zoetis took as their research starting point a previous government vaccine developed to save California condors. They tweaked it here and there and came up with a variant that works in chickens, ducks, cows, and apparently other livestock. Why the government made a condor vaccine first, and why they couldn’t then figure out how to make their own vaccine work for chickens, is not revealed. Let me repeat - sixty government labs. Some layoffs beginning next week.

I hope this works. If it doesn’t, Trump will now personally own the bird flu crisis, high egg prices, infected raw milk sold in health food stores, and probably every cockfight taking place in East LA. (Bird flu is easily spread by unvaccinated roosters which travel the “fight circuit” in border states.)

I’m not resting easy though. We still have to lick swine flu, Ebola, and monkey pox. If you thought smallpox was gone, think again. It's having a resurgence in places like Brazil, Argentina, and India with poor public health programs. These also happen to be places people are trying to migrate from, for economic reasons.

Thank you, Zoetis. And I want the CDC and HHS to keep working with big pharma to contain these other deadly diseases. But I don’t want to find there are also 60 different government labs working on monkeypox at the same time.

Did everyone get their measles vaccine booster? (Not you RFK jr - we all know your views on this). More than 100,000 people died of measles in other nations last year.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

USDA scientists overseeing bird flu response are laid off

Zoetis says its recieved conditional approval for the bird flu vaccine | CNN

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PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

This is not even remotely unusual. In fact this is how the industry works for pretty much all medication.

The majority of all drugs and vaccines are developed in government labs or publicly funded research universities. Then it is handed to the pharmaceutical companies that have the production capabilities for mass production, and marketing.

This is not even remotely outside the norm. Works the same in other western countries too.

As for laying off USDA employees that track outbreaks that is typical Trump who got 500k Americans killed by covid 19 literally because he could not read a manual.

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@PicturesOfABetterTomorrow i don't object to government helping. i object to 60 labs, in 60 different locations. none of which actually made a vaccine. that vaccine was made by Zoetis.

PicturesOfABetterTomorrow · 41-45, M

@SusanInFlorida Zoetis didn't invent anything. Your own source says so. They only were given the contract to mass produce and market an existing vaccine. In other words it is a license to produce a finished product.

Like I said. Even the Pfizer covid vaccine everyone is familiar with was developed by a publicly funded lab in Germany. Pfizer had the production facilities for mass production and the money for marketing.

Those 60 labs do most of the leg work. Always have. Along with an entire network of research universities that are publicly funded.

You misunderstand your own sources.

Close those labs and the only thing you will ever see get made by the big Pharma companies is the 110th variation of Tylenol.

MethDozer · M

No problem having 60 labs working on vaccines. More labs= faster and better results.

There is a problem thought that all this government research gets handed over to Big pharma to profit off of.. It's the way it has always gone though. Tax payer research for big business to exploit.
Eliminate big pharma and give the people their medicines they paid to develope. No parents, no private sector, no profits

SusanInFlorida · 31-35, F

@MethDozer you get the prize for "logic". why did all 60 labs fail to get results, and the winner was Zoetis, the private sector lab?

maybe government labs are as good as pentagon weapons procurement, covid 19 grants administration, public schools, and pothole repairs.

MethDozer · M

@SusanInFlorida Zoetis is piggy backing off of previous government research 🤣. Bu your own admission they took government research and development. AND PAID NOTHING.

Wah, wah, wahhhhhhh.....🤣

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