Vaccination saved lives, while the unvaccinated cost them. Now, vaccine-preventable diseases are a killer. The U.S. now spends an estimated $50 billion annually on the pharmaceutical industry. More than $3 billion is spent on advertising to promote vaccines, while another $2 billion is spent on the vaccine manufacturers themselves. The industry has also been linked to criminal activities, such as the fraudulent marketing of an HIV vaccine based on a false link between the vaccine and autism.
It’s not all fun and games. When the HPV vaccine was pulled from the market, the vaccine was still on sale. It had been purchased with $1.5 billion from pharmaceutical company Wyeth. Vaccines are currently being rejected in Europe. The United States is currently the only country in the world without a mandate for vaccines.
It is worth remembering that over the course of the last century, one hundred and eighteen millions people died from vaccine-preventable diseases. And that means those deaths could have been prevented had vaccinations never been invented.
The bottom line is that the vaccine makers don’t just make money; they have gotten people killed and that is unforgivable. When the vaccine industry was first getting started in the early 1900’s, there were plenty of other diseases to concern themselves with. Over the years, vaccines are turning out to be even more dangerous than were previously known. As of 2013, an estimated 10 to 100 people die every day from vaccine-preventable diseases — many of them kids — according to the CDC. Most of these deaths are caused by the HPV vaccine.
So, why would anyone want to invest their savings in the company which, in the immortal words of John Cusack, just might be “going crazy,” leaving everyone else to fend for themselves?
In a bid to address this conundrum, hedge fund manager Jeff Skilling has made a huge bet. He has joined forces with venture capitalist Paul Allen to launch the Vaccine Alliance. The goal is to raise $100 million to fund a campaign to get one hundred families, or families close to a child, the chance to be part of the vaccine’s development.
The hope is that the alliance’s campaign will allow the vaccines to be developed “without
