OPINION:
AstraZeneca has just announced it is stopping production of its COVID shots, citing a drop in demand around the world. There’s a half-truth if ever there was one.
The demand has stopped because AstraZeneca recently admitted the shot could cause life-threatening injuries.
From the Big Pharma company: “As multiple variant Covid-19 vaccines have since been developed there’s a surplus of available updated vaccines,” the company said in a statement.
A surplus?
Now from The Independent — the backstory: “[This] admission came after the company was slapped with a class action lawsuit in the UK, which claimed that the vaccine had caused deaths and severed injuries and sought damages up to [1 million pounds].”
So what’s a good pharmaceutical to do?
In AstraZeneca’s case — pivot.
Pivot and focus on other matters.
Focus, for instance, on advancing China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the massive Chinese Communist Party-driven endeavor to spread communism around the world.
In a March announcement, the same month the company applied to withdraw its COVID shots from the European Union market, AstraZeneca announced its intent to build its fifth global strategic center in Shanghai. The China-focused center makes financial sense for AstraZeneca; roughly 13 percent of the pharmaceutical’s sales reportedly come from China. But sales aren’t the only thing on AstraZeneca’s mind.
BioProcess International wrote this: “AstraZeneca also unveiled a plan to assist 30 Shanghai enterprises to go global in 2024. The plan will involve emerging markets that are part of the Belt and Road Initiative as well as the US, Japan, and some developed countries in Europe. Through two-way visas, the company plans to promote cross-border cooperation and improve pharmaceutical innovation.”
Pascal Soriot, AstraZeneca’s CEO, said similarly — that the Shanghai operation is to “increase investment,” and to “carry out more in-depth cooperation with local innovative pharmaceutical companies in China,” and to yada, yada, yada; it’s all good; nothing to see here — certainly no Wuhan virus to see here. Wait, when was it again that China was held accountable for unleashing the coronavirus on the world? Oh, that’s right. Never.
Why would a pharmaceutical sidestep its core pharmaceutical mission to help spread the cancer of communism and CCP propaganda around the world?
That’s beyond woke.
But in fact, AstraZeneca is already woke.
On its “AstraZeneca history timeline” webpage, the company lists 2024 as the year it named Shanghai “as our fifth global strategic R&D [research and development] centre,” as well as its investment of $300 million to build a “next-generation cell therapies” development facility in Rockville Maryland — and 2021 as the year it was awarded the “inaugural 2021 Terra Carta Seal” that’s given to firms “driving innovation and leadership to tackle climate change.” Oh, how nice.
Then there was this, from 2020: “We announce our science-based Ambition Zero Carbon program … to achieve a carbon negative value chain by 2030” as well as as the launching of AZ Forest to “plant and maintain 200 million trees across six continents by 2030.”
Climate change.
Communism.
The CCP’s adoring Belt and Road Initiative to bring developing nations under the boot of China’s control.
It’s bad enough Big Pharma failed the world and lied about its COVID shots and called them safe, guaranteed them safe, insisted they were safe, then stood by and applauded as governments used tax dollars to purchase them and mandate them into the arms of men, women, children, babies.
But to have Big Pharma help spread the communist dream is unforgivable and dangerous. Pharmaceuticals should stick with the basics — developing safe pharmaceuticals. If COVID is any example, they still have a long way to go before achieving that goal.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter and podcast by clicking HERE. Her latest book, “Lockdown: The Socialist Plan To Take Away Your Freedom,” is available by clicking HERE or clicking HERE or CLICKING HERE.
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
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