#780 The Economics Behind Vaccinations w/ Dr. Peter McCullough

Dr. Peter McCullough is an American Cardiologist. He previously was the Vice Chief of Internal Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and a Professor at Texas A&M University. Dr. McCullough has become well known in the Internet circles for speaking out against many of the well held consensus around Covid-19, Vaccinations, and Public Health decisions. In this conversation we discuss the capitalistic pursuits of vaccine manufactures. Who is making money? How much? And why this is important for the public health conversation. ======================= Bitcoin 2022 is the LARGEST Bitcoin event in the world that takes place April 6th - 9th in Miami Beach, Florida. All four days will be jammed-packed with exclusive content, exciting announcements and an incredible lineup of bitcoin speakers, artists and leaders. Day 1 is INDUSTRY DAY for enterprising bitcoiners who are looking to build a business or career within the ecosystem. Days 2 and 3 are general conference days featuring speakers like El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, CEOs like Michael Saylor, Elizabeth Stark, Jack Mallers, Adam Back and hundreds more. The conference caps off on the fourth day with the world's first and largest Bitcoin Music Festival - Sound Money Fest headlined by rapper and fellow bitcoiner Logic, featuring artists K. Flay, MØ, Royal & the Serpent, Apashe, Asadi and more. Stay tuned for the upcoming lineup announcement! Last year’s conference SOLD OUT and this year’s is on pace to be 3x larger so make sure you grab your tickets before it's too late. Visit b.tc/conference to learn more. Ticket prices increase on JAN 14th, use promo code POMP for 10% off and I will see you in Miami!ire ecosystem bringing utility to #NFTs. ======================= Brave Wallet is the first secure crypto wallet built natively in a web3 crypto browser. No extension required. Store, manage, and grow your portfolio, get NFT & multi-chain support, and more. Download the Brave privacy browser at brave.com/Pomp, and click the wallet icon to get started. =======================

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone, this is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Dr. Peter McCullough is an American cardiologist. He previously was the Vice Chief of Internal Medicine at Baylor University Medical Center and a professor at Texas A&M University. Dr. McCullough has become well-known in the internet circles for speaking out against many of the well-held consensus around COVID-19, the vaccine, and various other aspects of public health over the last two years. Dr. McCullough joined me in a conversation to specifically talk about the capitalistic pursuits of vaccine manufacturers, including

• 0:45Anthony Pompliano?

  who is making money, how much, and why is that important as part of the public health conversation. I really enjoyed this conversation with Dr. McCullough, and I hope you do as well. Before we get into this episode, though, I want to quickly talk about our sponsors. Today's episode is sponsored by the Bitcoin 2022 Conference. Bitcoin 2022 is the largest Bitcoin event in the world that takes place April 6th through the 9th in Miami Beach, Florida. All four days will be jam-packed with exclusive content, exciting announcements, and an incredible lineup of Bitcoin speakers, artists, and leaders. Day one is Industry Day for enterprising Bitcoiners who are looking to build a business or career within the ecosystem. Days two and three are General Conference Days, featuring speakers like El Salvador

• 1:27Anthony Pompliano?

  President Nayib Bukele, CEOs like Michael Saylor, Elizabeth Stark, Jack Mahlers, Adam Back, and hundreds more. The conference caps off on the fourth day with the world's first and largest Bitcoin music festival, Sound Money Fest, headlined by rapper and fellow Bitcoiner Logic, featuring artists K. Flay, Mo, Royal, and The Serpent, Apache, Asadi, and more. Stay tuned for the upcoming lineup announcement. Last year's conference sold out, and this year's is on pace to be three times larger, so make sure you grab your tickets before it's too late. Visit b.tc/conference to learn more. Again, that's b.tc/conference to learn more. Ticket prices increase on January 14th. Use promo code POMP for 10% off, and I will see you in

• 2:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Miami. Today's episode is brought to you by Fundrise. You all know I believe that the best investors both understand and seek out extreme asymmetry. Fundrise is here to help you do just that. It's the largest direct to investor real estate investment platform out there, giving you the opportunity to achieve upside of an asset class previously reserved for institutions and high net worth individuals. That's right. Fundrise is making high end, private market, real estate investing accessible to everyone via an easy to use automated platform. Its 1 million users already know that the investment with Fundrise is capable of producing strong appreciation returns and income generation, while helping to stabilize a diversified portfolio. That's more important now than ever in our inflationary environment. See for yourself how over 190,000 other investors have built a better portfolio with private real estate.

• 2:55Anthony Pompliano?

  It takes just a few minutes to get started with as little as $10. Go to fundrise.com/pomp today. And for a limited time, you'll get $10 when you place your first investment. Again, that's fundrise.com/pomp. Go check it out. And when you make your first investment, they'll give you $10 on top of it. Fundrise.com/pomp. Today's episode is brought to you by Brave. Brave Wallet is the first secure crypto wallet built natively in a web three crypto browser. What's web three? Web three is freedom from big tech and Wall Street, more control and better privacy. But there's a weak point in web three, your crypto wallet. Most wallets are browser extensions, a web two technology. That means the same old risks, app spoofing, phishing scams and theft.

• 3:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Brave Wallet is different. Brave Wallet is the first secure wallet built natively in a web three crypto browser, no extension required. With Brave Wallet, you can buy, store, send and swap assets, manage NFTs, even connect other wallets and dApps, all from the security of the best privacy browser on the market. Whether you're new to crypto or a seasoned pro, it's time to ditch those risky extensions. It's time to switch to Brave Wallet. Download Brave at brave.com/pomp and click the wallet icon to get started. Again, go download Brave at brave.com/pomp and click the wallet icon to get started.

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do Do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 4:36Anthony Pompliano?

  We have Dr. McCullough ready with us now. Doctor, are you there?

• 4:39Speaker 02

  Yes, I am. Thanks for having me on.

• 4:41Anthony Pompliano?

  Absolutely. Thank you so much for joining us. I know that we don't have a ton of time, but what I wanted to talk to you today about is, there's a lot of conversation right now around public health policy, around vaccines, the efficacy, etc. But one of the things that has gone largely unspoken about is the business behind the vaccine, or kind of the capitalism, and how that overlays with public policy. And some of the numbers, as I was researching to talk to you, were just eye-popping, right? The vaccine manufacturers are making $65,000 per minute in profit. Some of these businesses are saying that in 2021, they've made $20, $35 billion off of sales of this. And so, maybe just to start, give me your understanding of

• 5:26Anthony Pompliano?

  kind of how the business of the vaccine really plays out, and how important that is to how the vaccine's rolled out, and really, who gets it, who doesn't, and kind of who ends up being the winners and losers in all of this?

• 5:37Speaker 02

  Well, thanks for having me on. For those of you I haven't met, I'm Dr. Peter McCullough. I'm a practicing internist cardiologist. I'm trained in epidemiology, and I've been very involved in the pandemic response clinically, but also in performing original research and reviewing data. You know, frequently a commentator on the national TV systems, and it's a pleasure to be on. It's important for everybody to understand that the vaccine manufacturers had their development costs covered by the US government in accelerated fashion to bring these products through Operation Warp Speed. So they had no development costs, and they also didn't have any marketing costs. Normally, the company has to produce a product, and then market it, and get it FDA-approved. It went through what's called the Emergency Use Authorization

• 6:21Speaker 02

  Mechanism. So they bypassed All those costs and so they are set up to reap record profits. I would point you to a book, COVID-19 and the Global Predators, We Are the Prey, by Dr. Peter Breggin and Ginger Breggin. They really outline that the complex web of connections between the pharmaceutical industry, the US government, various stakeholders, Gates Foundation, GAVI, SEPI, Rockefeller Foundation, and the Chinese government. But it's a complicated web of which there are a few individuals and certainly a few companies that are profiting massively.

• 6:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so when you think about this, one thing that I don't think I understood is the actual development costs themselves are being covered by the US government. And so essentially, is it fair to think about majority of the revenue that these manufacturers are pulling in, that's basically profit, right? If the R and D costs aren't there, then maybe there's a little bit on the distribution costs. But other than that, most of this is just pure profit to their bottom line?

• 7:24Speaker 02

  That's true. I mean, they have to produce the product and then distribute it to the EUA sites for administration. But they don't have any marketing costs. Sometimes for a drug, half of the cost is marketing. And then, you know, they don't have to get insurance approvals or any of those things. It's just pure money coming in. They're all pre-purchased. The products are all pre-purchased. So this is, in a sense, money in the bank. But America should be hawkish on conflict of interest. So for example, former FDA Commissioner and now Pfizer Board Member,

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Scott Gottlieb, is on CNBC every morning advising America on pandemic response. He ought to be off TV. He's got a huge conflict of interest. He is mostly profiting from vaccines. Former FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, who really worked greatly to actually hurt early treatment and block early treatment, he's now gone to the venture capital firm that funds Moderna. The National Institutes of Health co-owns a patent for the COVID-19 vaccine with Moderna. And then Rick Bright, who was in the White House, who blocked hydroxy... And Corcoran to patients, he's joined the Rockefeller Foundation, which has been a stalwart for eugenics and vaccine research for decades.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  I mean, America should be looking at this conflict of interest here and be outraged.

• 8:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, and I think also, what is it, the Reuters CEO, the former CEO of Reuters is also on the Pfizer board. There's a whole bunch of folks who, whether they actively have conflicts or kind of historical positions of power and influence, obviously, are involved here. Bringing it back to some of the math around the business of this, the numbers that we were able to find in the research is that Moderna, according to its second quarter earnings report, they projected about 19.2 billion in COVID-19 vaccine sales for 2021. For Pfizer, their second quarter earnings report forecasted 2021 sales of the COVID-19 vaccine to be 33.5 billion. And then Johnson & Johnson, they estimated full year vaccine sales to be 2.5 billion. Now, when you add all of that up, we're talking, you know, it's called 50 to 60 billion

• 9:32Anthony Pompliano?

  of these vaccine sales, as you so eloquently described. They basically will have majority of that become profit because of the lack of R and D and also the lack of having to actually market this. Now, what I found fascinating as we were researching this, though, is that in most non-developed nations, there are still levels of 90-plus percent of people who are unvaccinated. So, majority of these vaccines are actually going to develop nations where they're able to drive a much higher price. And there's been some lack of interest, if you will, in actually taking the vaccine and giving it over to some of these public-private partnerships or people like the World Health Organization, who could help distribute it more effectively globally, which would ultimately drive that price down, which leads to less revenue.

• 10:13Anthony Pompliano?

  So, can you talk a little bit about how your understanding is of people selecting, where are they going to sell these vaccines? And why is it that maybe it's being concentrated in developed nations versus some of these other places?

• 10:25Speaker 02

  It's interesting you point that out. There seems to be also a plan from the beginning to suppress early treatment for COVID-19 in the developed nations, including the United States, Canada, some South American countries, Britain, the EU, South Africa, and Australia. Those are the countries that have been starved of early treatment and those markets, if you will, have been prepped. For mass vaccination. Whereas other markets around the equator, for instance, you know, they hand out treatment packets for COVID-19, they get people through COVID-19 easily because it's such a treatable illness. And they have been, in a sense, not prized as a market for mass vaccination. And the vaccines really have underperformed.

• 11:08Speaker 02

  We have data now from Young Jew showing that coverage for Delta, it was published in JAMA, was only 20%. And now we have a paper by Hanson and the UK report, the overall public report, showing basically no effectiveness against Omicron. So it's pretty clear, analysis by Subermanian and colleagues have shown, the vaccines have made no impact globally on the pandemic, and it's come to us at a giant cost for really no benefit.

• 11:34Anthony Pompliano?

  I've got two of my brothers here that they have questions as well. Very quickly, Joe and John, what questions do you guys have for Dr. McCullough?

• 11:40Speaker 03

  Dr. McCullough, thanks for coming on today. One of my questions would just be around FDA approval. I know you've mentioned previously that these vaccines were not FDA approved, and there's been some things in the news, specifically even up to the White House, where they said these vaccines were FDA approved. Can you just talk a little bit about the confusion there?

• 11:55Speaker 02

  On August 23rd, Pfizer met in a closed meeting with the FDA. There was no advisory panel, no external experts there to watch or take minutes or present. But what came out of that meeting was a continuation of the emergency use authorization to Pfizer. So Pfizer was not approved by the FDA. And then there was a biological licensing agreement assigned to BioNTech, a German partner for their vaccine. But that application must have a commitment to post-marketing studies, many post-marketing studies about myocardial injury after the vaccines, heart injury, myocarditis, special language about safety in pregnancy. And so if BioNTech wants to move forward with a product, if the German company wants

• 12:40Speaker 02

  to enter the US market, they have to do all that and commit to that. They have to write a package insert, then BioNTech would have to, you know, produce a product and distribute in the United States. That hasn't happened. So Pfizer is still under the emergency use authorization. Americans know Pfizer's not approved because the consent form didn't change. And insurance companies don't have to approve it. Insurance companies are not paying for it. It's still the same old Pfizer and the consent forms simply say that we don't know if this is going to work and we don't know if it's safe. The consent forms are asking Americans to participate in research and that's what the emergency use authorization is. So there was a false talking point that came out of that meeting and went all the way up to the President of the United States who said that Pfizer was approved when it

• 13:21Speaker 02

  was not. And you know, within seven days, Dr. Gruber, who signed the letter for BioNTech, the, you know, the high ranking vaccine regulatory official, she resigned. So if that tells you anything.

• 13:32Speaker 04

  John, what questions you got? Yeah, thank you for joining us, Dr. McColl. So my question is around the testing, right? So we've seen places like Kroger and Walgreens, they've actually increased the price of their test from $14 to $24. In your professional opinion, is that just based on supply and demand or is there a bigger thing going on there?

• 13:48Speaker 02

  It's supply and demand. Everyone's got COVID-19 now. I think almost all my patients do. There's almost complete capitulation. We heard reports out of California yesterday that even if people test positive, they should show up to work anyway because it's just, it's so ubiquitous now. So what I'm telling my patients, if I have a high risk senior citizen, I'm really wanting to know if it's COVID or not, I'll have them get tested. But we should be doing zero tests on people without symptoms because it's just, it's, it's never been FDA approved to do that. It's not supported by any of the science. It's not supported by WHO or CDC. That means all the testing in schools or employers making people do tests once a week, travel, crossing the border, all that needs to stop immediately.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  It's a giant waste of testing. We know when people are asymptomatic and they test positive, 97% of the time it's a false positive. That's what's going on in the NFL, the NBA, all the sports teams, NHL right now, is they're just generating tons of, of test results and having people quarantine for no reason. The CDC finally capitulated on that too and said even if you test positive, you could go to a five day quarantine period in, in, you know, that's if you're asymptomatic. We've gone ahead and extended that to, to clinically, you know, clinically patients with COVID-19 illness, provided the last two days they had, don't have a fever or severe symptoms. So I think a lot of this is just breaking down with Omicron. Omicron is so ubiquitous, it doesn't respond to the vaccines, everyone's

• 15:16Speaker 02

  getting it. It broke through natural immunity, it broke through vaccine immunity, and it's like getting

• 15:20Speaker 02

  It's like getting a common cold.

• 15:23Anthony Pompliano?

  And then Dr. McCullough, one of our last questions for you is, one of the jokes on the internet, and I always like to say that like the memes on the internet are the message. It's a way that society is expressing kind of what they're thinking. Is that a lot of these vaccine manufacturers are essentially creating vaccine as a subscription service, right? You subscribe to Netflix and then you're going to subscribe. And there just seems to always be another shot, another booster, another thing that we get. How do you think about kind of capitalistic incentives, which obviously if there was some sort of vaccine subscription, obviously that would be an incredible boom for these types of businesses, as a trade off with public health and actually what, you know, science and doctors are saying, are those two things completely at odds with each other?

• 16:05Anthony Pompliano?

  Or is there a world where the capitalism can, you know, kind of run wild, but also we can serve individuals correctly from like a public health standpoint?

• 16:15Speaker 02

  You know, if they were injections that, you know, reduce the chances of heart disease or cause weight loss or reduced blood pressure or cholesterol, something like that, you could think there's some value to them. But if it's injections that are occurring once a month and they're genetic transfer technology platforms, they don't stop COVID-19, they don't stop transmission, and they have safety concerns, including immediate death, urgent care visits, ER visits, permanent disability. They'll do, boy, this is the worst subscription service you'd ever want to have. People don't want to subscribe to monthly or every three month or six month injections against your will. I don't know anybody who wants that.

• 17:00Speaker 02

  I'm calling for the vaccine mandates to be dropped. I think these products ought to be paused completely, pull them off the market. We need to analyze why they failed, what's causing all these deaths and injuries. And then look for the newer vaccines. I think the Novavax vaccine looks far better, far safer, just a protein based vaccine like a tetanus shot. And so our seniors, people in nursing homes, elderly, nursing workers, they may need a booster. Everybody else is off the table now, since they pretty much have had COVID-19 or the Omicron, in a sense, Omicron. Mother Nature's booster.

• 17:30Anthony Pompliano?

  Got it. And so, uh, well, let's go after this, but I think if I had to summarize kind of your viewpoint, right, is you're not anti-vaccine, you're not anti-science, you're not kind of any of these things. And instead you're saying, look, there's a way to do this and do it correctly. That both has a trade off of like keeping people safe, not overreaching from a kind of a personal liberty standpoint, and also allows for scientists, doctors, healthcare professionals to study the impact of things that they're actually giving to people. And so is it fair to kind of say that you are a rational pro-vaccine? Hey, if they work and they're done correctly, then like, yes, this is like a no brainer for society. But at the same time, we shouldn't just blindly run after any single solution that people put forward. Like, is that kind of a fair way to describe how you view this?

• 18:15Speaker 02

  I think you said it quite fairly. You know, I'm a physician scientist. I have over 650 publications in the National Library of Medicine. I'm one of the most published doctors that you'd ever have on TV or on the media that any American would see. I personally have taken all the vaccines, evidence-based vaccines. I haven't taken the COVID vaccine because I've already had it and now I've had Omicron. So I would have been excluded from the trials. About 70% of my patients took the vaccines early on before we knew about the safety problem. So I'm definitely not anti-vaccine. I'm very pro-science because, you know, I publish science. That's what I do. I'm the editor of a major journal and I've been very careful with America. You know, I, I cite the data, I cite the literature.

• 18:58Speaker 02

  I haven't made major errors in my predictions and people rely on me in US Senate, as well as state senate testimony to guide the country. So if there is a safer vaccine out there that could be applied to our nursing home residents, and if severe illness still affects them, then I'm all for it. But Pfizer, Moderna, J and J and AstraZeneca, they basically have failed and they need to get pulled off the market.

• 19:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Awesome. Well, listen, Dr. McClellan, I know that you're very busy. So I appreciate you taking the time today to, to come on and, and talk through this with us. You know, my big takeaway from this conversation frankly are these large manufacturers, they got all the R and D costs covered by government funds. There's, you know, near zero marketing costs associated with it. And these are big revenue numbers that also have very high profit margins. And so regardless of what people think about the actual efficacy, or should they take it, should they not, whatever, that's up for them to decide. But there's a lot of money being made here. And as you articulated, there's a lot of conflicts of interest. And maybe you can't resolve those, but it's worth people at least understanding kind of how the world works, where money's flowing and what those conflicts are. So I appreciate your time today and just keep up the good work. There's a lot of people counting on you. Okay, thank you, guys.

• 20:06Anthony Pompliano?

  All right, sounds good, doctor. Thank you.