Drug company Chief says Delta and Omicron could combine to create a ‘Monster’ Virus.
Moderna’s chief medical officer has warned that the Delta and Omicron variants of COVID-19 could combine to create a ‘monster’ virus. Paul Burton made the comments while addressing the House of Commons Technologies and Science Committee on Tuesday.
Burton claimed that it was possible for someone to contract both variants at the same time, which “certainly gives an opportunity for the two viruses to, what we call, recombinate,” It certainly gives the drugs company the opportunity to sell us more vaccines too. Burton said the two variants could begin to “share genes and to swap genes over.” This could “certainly” lead to worse COVID-19 symptoms than usual, according to Burton, who added that “it is really important to think about it” given the rapid spread of Omicron.
Aleksandr Semyonov, head of Russia’s Vector virology research center, said that although it would be a “rather rare phenomenon,” a potential Delta-Omicron combination is still possible.
When the CEO of Pfizer recently announced that it would take TWO boosters to fully protect against Omicron share-prices of the pharmaceuticals giant went through the roof.
The solution to any future variant or ‘monster virus’ will, of course, be more restrictions, more lockdowns and lots more vaccines with Moderna handily placed to take advantage of that.
This is not the first time that Moderna have peddled fear to increase sales. They have also been responsible for telling us how many of their products we need to combat Omicron in an effort to push up sales. Moderna’s Stephane Bancel said that even younger people will have to get vaccine booster shots at least once every three years but failed to provide any scientific proof of this sales-pitch.
The scare-story, told to the House of Commons Science Committee, follows a ruling earlier this month in a US court that found against Moderna for patent infringement. The U.S. Court of Appeals bolstered an administrative panel’s conclusion that patents belonging to Canadian biopharmaceutical company Arbutus Biopharma Corporation are justified since the science utilized was not known previously, Reuters reported.
Those patents, however, involved the technology that Moderna used in its COVID-19 vaccine, according to Reuters. A Moderna spokesperson said in a statement that the company disagrees with the court’s decision and believes its vaccine does not fall under Arbutus’ patent.
“While we disagree with the remainder of the decisions maintaining certain other claims or not considering their validity because of a procedural issue, we are confident that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is not covered by those claims,” the spokesperson said.
“Moderna is a pioneer of mRNA-based vaccines, and we have developed our own proprietary LNP-delivery technology. This technology allows us to deliver on our mission of creating a new generation of transformative medicines for patients,” the spokesperson added. However, Moderna have lost the case with the potential of losing billions in compensation to Arbutus, the company Moderna 'borrowed' from without permission.
A potential black-hole in Moderna's finances one week, a scare story about 'monster' viruses the next. Could these two incidents be linked?