"The Pfizer vaccine is still being tested, the company's announcement is pure propagand

                                                ANGELES MAESTRO: "THE PHARMACEUTICALS HAVE MILLIONS TO BRIBE GOVERNMENTS AND INTITUTIONS"

 x Canarias Semanal: Interview with Nines Maestro, Red Roja leader and specialist in Public Health.

Last Monday the American multinational company Pfizer announced, with great fanfare, that it had a vaccine against Covid 19 with 90% effectiveness. Almost immediately, the Minister of Health, Salvador Illa, announced, for his part, that the Government of Spain will buy 20 million units of this vaccine, which will supply 10 million people at the beginning of next year.

The main media of the country celebrated the news as if it meant that, finally, the definitive remedy had been found to end the pandemic. But is there really scientific data to justify this outrageous optimism?

The leader of Red Roja and specialist in Public Health, Nines Maestro, consulted on this subject by Canarias weekly, explains that:

"The reality is that, so far, the only thing there is about this vaccine is a statement from the same company, which also recognizes that said vaccine has only passed phase 1 of tests, to now begin phase 2- 3".

THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT IS TOTALLY IRRESPONSIBLE

Maestro recalls, in this sense, that the trials of this vaccine have not even been completed and, therefore, it cannot yet be endorsed by either the international scientific community or the WHO.

"The only thing we know about the vaccine, in reality, is," says Maestro, "that this propaganda announcement has skyrocketed the value of its shares and has allowed Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla to sell 62% of his shares worth 5, 6 million dollars the same day they were made. Exactly the same thing that happened a few months ago with the announcement of the also North American company Moderna ".

"We are facing a propaganda campaign, of self-promotion, and it is a tremendous irresponsibility that the Spanish government has joined the bandwagon, it is not known if the coronavirus panic or because they have been given a commission."

"In any case - Nines Maestro clarifies - the truth is that we are dealing with a multinational that hopes to pocket hundreds of billions of euros, and for this it has issued a self-propaganda statement."

For the Red Roja leader, it is essential to denounce the ability of multinational pharmaceutical companies to corrupt governments and all kinds of international institutions.

"This - Maestro clarifies - is not a mere opinion. It must be remembered that WHO itself had no choice but to admit, a few years ago, that its scientific committee of experts on influenza A had been bribed by the multinational manufacturers of the vaccine and drugs against this disease, to hide clinical trials that did not confirm their effectiveness and hide their side effects. "

"In Spain, with the Government of Rodríguez Zapatero and Trinidad Jiménez as Minister of Health, about 400 million euros were spent on these vaccines and drugs that were not finally used, in 2009, tremendous cuts were being made in the national system of health and other social services in the heat of crisis ".

"What I mean by this is that we cannot and should not trust multinationals or governments in which revolving doors are the order of the day."

"I remember now, for example -he points out- the case of the predecessor of Trinidad Jiménez itself, Bernat Soria, who ended up being booked by the Abbott laboratory, or Cristina Revilla, but the strange thing is to find a minister of the PSOE or the PP foreign to these revolving doors. "

"WHAT MUST BE REQUIRED IS THAT VACCINES DEVELOPED BY PUBLIC LABORATORIES BE PURCHASED"

For Nines maestro, the popular claim to governments must go through requiring them to buy vaccines developed in public laboratories.

"This is - he explains - the guarantee of acquiring a medicine whose production is as immune as possible to bribery from multinational pharmaceutical companies. And at this moment there are already countries, such as Cuba or Russia, with public laboratories developing highly advanced vaccines and also one of the three Chinese vaccines have been developed in a 100% public laboratory. "