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Moderna’s Billionaire CEO Draws Criticism for Earning Nearly $400 Million in Stock Options Last Year, and Then Getting a Raise on Top of It

Insider reported:

Moderna‘s chief executive officer Stéphane Bancel raked in about $393 million in 2022 thanks to stock options and then received a raise on top of it — compensation that’s giving some analysts pause.

In addition to exercising his stock options in 2022, 50-year-old Bancel earned a $1.5 million salary — a 50% jump from 2021, according to securities filings from March. Although Bancel donated $176 million after-tax to charity last year and pledged to continue donating, analysts are still critical of the executive pay at Moderna, the Washington Post reported.

His charitable efforts aren’t enough to curb criticism over his compensation, particularly as the development of the Moderna vaccine was supported by $1.7 billion from taxpayers and the National Institutes of Health.

Sen. Bernie Sanders spoke out against Moderna’s “corporate greed” in a March hearing over the company possibly quadrupling the price of the COVID-19 vaccine. “In the pharmaceutical industry today, we are looking at an unprecedented level of corporate greed, and that is certainly true with Moderna,” Sanders said.

Texas AG Ken Paxton’s COVID Vaccine Investigation Could Stick It to Big Pharma Execs

New York Post reported:

It’s sickening how much Big Pharma bosses have profited from the COVID-19 pandemic, after overselling billions of people around the world on the wondrous qualities of their vaccines.

Moderna chief executive Stéphane Bancel made nearly $400 million last year on his stock options and still owns a reported $2.8 billion of shares in the company plus his salary and perks.  His Pfizer counterpart, Albert Bourla, pocketed a $33 million salary last year, on top of the millions in Pfizer shares he sold.

But before they ride off into the sunset to count their filthy lucre, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton plans to investigate whether their companies misrepresented the efficacy and safety of the vaccines and manipulated vaccine trial data.

On Monday, Paxton will launch an investigation into potential violations of his state’s Deceptive Trade Practices Act by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson, he has revealed exclusively in The Post.

He also wants to know whether the pharmaceutical giants engaged in gain-of-function research and misled the public about it. The Texas investigation could have widespread implications for the legal immunity granted to manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccines and open the door to class-action lawsuits from people injured by the mRNA jabs, amid reports of rare but serious adverse effects.

BioNTech/Pfizer’s Mooted EU Deal for 70 Million COVID Shots Threatens Rivals

The Irish Times reported:

A proposed deal between BioNTech/Pfizer and the European Union for about 70 million COVID-19 shots a year until 2026 threatens to push rivals Moderna, Novavax, and Sanofi out of the market, risking the regional prevention of COVID-19 being left to just one product.

The bloc is negotiating an amended deal with Pfizer despite the European public prosecutor opening a criminal investigation into their original agreement. The fresh proposal includes a new provision for member states to pay half price — about €10 — for each canceled dose, according to people close to negotiations, who also confirmed the annual 70 million figure. The newer contract would allow the EU to upgrade to newer vaccines tailored to any future variants, two of those people said.

Poland and some other central European countries are refusing to sign the amended deal because they do not want to pay for canceled doses, according to two of the people. But if these holdouts can be persuaded, a revised deal would highlight the near-monopoly status enjoyed by BioNTech/Pfizer across the bloc.

“If [BioNTech/Pfizer] supply around 70 million doses per year for the next few years, that’s pretty much the totality of the market,” said one person familiar with the negotiations.

AstraZeneca Says New COVID Drug Could Guard Against All Variants of Concern to Date

CBS News reported:

A replacement for a key COVID-19 antibody drug that has been used to protect immunocompromised Americans could be available within months, executives for drugmaker AstraZeneca said Thursday, after promising early results suggested it may work against “all known variants of concern” to date.

The company’s new experimental drug, currently named AZD3152, is being tested in a trial dubbed “Supernova” with the hope of preventing symptomatic infection in people with weakened immune systems. Results from that study are on track to be out by September, an AstraZeneca spokesperson confirmed to CBS News.

That could tee up a potential emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration to make the drug available by the end of the year when another fall and winter resurgence of COVID-19 is expected.

IN-DEPTH: U.S. Officials Reject Compensation for People Diagnosed With COVID Vaccine Injuries

The Epoch Times reported:

U.S. authorities rejected multiple people who sought compensation for COVID-19 vaccine injuries, despite diagnoses from doctors, documents show. Letters from U.S. officials reviewed by The Epoch Times show officials contradicting doctors who treated patients as they turned down requests for payment.

Cody Flint, an agricultural pilot, was diagnosed by four doctors with a severe adverse reaction to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine. Shortly after being vaccinated, Flint experienced intense head pressure, which led to problems such as perilymphatic fistula, the doctors said.

Flint sent a slew of medical files, including evidence of the diagnoses, to the U.S. Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program (CICP), which compensates people who prove they were injured by a COVID-19 shot. But administrators for the program rejected Flint’s application in a denial letter, saying they “did not find the requisite evidence that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination caused” the conditions from which he suffers.

More than 8,100 applications, as of April 1, have been submitted to the CICP for compensation for a COVID-19 vaccine-induced injury or death. Three hundred and sixty-two in total have been turned down. Just 23 have been accepted. All but two are for a type of heart inflammation called myocarditis or a related condition known as pericarditis, both of which U.S. authorities say are caused by COVID-19 vaccination.

Dr. Fauci on Mistakes Made During the Pandemic: ‘We Have to Get Away From the Blame Game’

The Daily Wire reported:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview this week that people should stop blaming public health officials for mistakes that were made during the pandemic.

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour asked Fauci what he thinks he and the scientific community “got wrong” with the policies that they pushed for and implemented. “What are the real takeaways, the real lessons for public health?” she asked.

“I think we have to get away from the blame game because so many of the things that you have mentioned were unknowns at the time,” Fauci responded. “It’s so easy.”

CDC Set to Stop Tracking Community Levels for COVID

CNN Health reported:

As the nation’s public health emergency expires on May 11, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will stop reporting its color-coded COVID-19 Community Levels as a way to track the spread of the infection.

Instead, the CDC will keep tabs on COVID-19 largely by tracking hospitalizations in some areas, according to a source familiar with the agency’s plans.

This is much the same way the agency tracks other respiratory infections, such as the flu.

Could Long COVID Change Brain Activity?

U.S. News & World Report reported:

Scientists report that brain scans of long COVID patients show abnormal activity in areas related to memory.

The scan results validate the concerns of these patients, who feel like they’re experiencing fatigue, trouble concentrating and memory issues, even though their scores on thinking tests don’t show it.

“We were able to show that even though they were able to do the task — they did everything correctly — the brain was functioning in a way that shows that it’s compensating,” said lead researcher Dr. Linda Chang, a neurologist at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. “The brain actually is using different parts of the brain to do the work. That means the normal brain network is not functioning as well.”

Chang and her research team studied this in 29 people who had been infected with COVID about seven months earlier, nine of them were hospitalized for their illness. Each patient had at least one ongoing neuropsychiatric symptom.