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Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

reuters.com

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Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#101

Post by leg100 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #16
akie wrote: post #5

This Covid vaccine was created by a German company founded by the children of Turkish immigrants. In this time of open racism and public hostility to immigration, this needs to be pointed out and repeated. It was children of Turkish immigrants to Germany.

The fact you're downvoted to grey saddens me. For heaven's sake this is a tech forum and especially us techies should very well know that immigration and open exchange of people and ideas is the key to success.

Because people are tired of identity politics being shoved down their throats, not because they're against immigration per se. The fact of someone's race or origin is far less interesting than the story of these individuals, their personalities, their minds. If race or origin comes into it, it's if it plays into these deeper stories. But we don't want people telling us that they should be "pointed out and repeated". It's both irksome and facile.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#102

Post by [deleted] »

forgotmypw17 wrote: post #77
sschueller wrote: post #2

Why is Pfizer always mentioned in the news when it is BioNTech and Pfizer is "just" a partner? Just as the Chinese drugmaker Fosun is. Sure credit goes to both but this "Dream Team" is BioNTech.

I think many more American people would avoid and mistrust a Chinese vaccine than one they perceive as being "American"

[deleted]

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#103

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

bluGill wrote: post #68
MrBuddyCasino wrote: post #23

So I've heard this is will be the first mRNA vaccine on the market, ever. How worried should I be, given the political pressure to get a COVID19 vaccine to market as quickly as possible?

I wouldn't sorry too much. We understand a lot of old worries and so we know they don't apply. They have a lot of data from previous forms of this type of things suggesting it is safe. We know the that injected "things" break down very quickly in the body, which again makes us believe there won't be any long term problems. Of course in the end who knows. There could be something, and we may not know for 10 years. On…

> We understand a lot of old worries and so we know they don't apply.

What are "old worries"? This is a new type of vaccine.

> They have a lot of data from previous forms of this type of things suggesting it is safe.

How does this make sense, given this is the first mRNA vaccine? The expression "previous forms of this type of things" is as blurry as it can get.

> We know the that injected "things" break down very quickly in the body, which again makes us believe there won't be any long term problems.

Heavy metals are "things", and when you inject them in the body, they don't break down, but stay there and slowly kill you.

> Of course in the end who knows. There could be something, and we may not know for 10 years.

This is not the attitude I'd take on something that potentially hundreds of millions of people will be subjected to. I'm aware that you can't ever prove something to be safe. I want to know if the specific risk brought about by mRNA vaccines are well understood or not, and why.

> On the other hand, we know that Covid is killing a large number of people right now.

It doesn't.

> We have enough data to confidently state that the long term adverse effects are overall less bad than Covid.

Splendid, I'm not going to ask for sources then, because I like the tone of your voice so much.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#104

Post by scotty79 »

haskaalo wrote: post #90

How can they make sure that the mass produced version of the vaccine doesn't have a "mutation" (extra/missing nucleotide) in some shots while producing the mRNA?

I think they could replicate mRNA into latge batch, then test it if it conains enough of correct mRNA.

If there is some slightly incorrect mRNA it will result in cells producing wrongly folded protein and if there's enough of it you'll get additional immunity to something slightly different.

Cells that produce the protein are to be killed by immune system anyways and natural viral mRNA is probably not perfectly replicated 100% of the time.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#106

Post by davrosthedalek »

_trampeltier wrote: post #25
davrosthedalek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is news to me. German police and media normally go to great length not to mention names/personal information of suspects (and victims), a crass difference to the US.

Not personal information, but country of birth or nationality.

Which is personal information. But I don't think they write it that often. The reverse has become a meme on right-wing forums: "tHeY dOn'T SaY tHere[sic] NAme so We NOw[sic] wHich RaCE iT Is".

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#107

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

levosmetalo wrote: post #85
BjoernKW wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This might have something to do with national bias. In Germany, where BioNTech is based, news articles (or rather: German-language articles) either mention BioNTech exclusively or cite them as the primary player in the BioNTech / Pfizer partnership.

> This might have something to do with national bias. I would rather say nationalistic bias. Because the fine German press never put a bombastic headlines like "Migrants invented Covid vaccine", or "Scientists of Turkish origin to save millions of German lives". Somehow these facts are conveniently ignored, but when a person with migration heritage do something bad, it's vocally mentioned in all media, including the…

The populist media is the same in every country: Migrant does something good, he's a local, pop the champagne to celebrate our nation's glorious achievement; migrant does something bad, he's , out with them foreigners.

Tribalism is still deeply rooted in our DNA and the media capitalizez on that since it gets them clicks on their articles.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#108

Post by tannhaeuser »

sschueller wrote: post #2

Why is Pfizer always mentioned in the news when it is BioNTech and Pfizer is "just" a partner? Just as the Chinese drugmaker Fosun is. Sure credit goes to both but this "Dream Team" is BioNTech.

FAZ (German press) portrays Ugur Sahin, BioNTech's founder and CEO, as kindof a nerd who doesn't like press conferences, sticks to facts, and rather spends his time in the lab.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#109

Post by scotty79 »

choko wrote: post #58
mschuster91 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until 2017 this actually was a rule (not a legally binding, just the "honor code") for media, but this got changed after the AfD and other Nazis whined for years that police and media would not "tell the truth" about migrant crimes, "suppress" or "hide" them ( https://www.migazin.de/2017/03/24/presserat-aendert-richtlin... ). A very sad day for our society.

Are you saying that facts should be suppressed because someone might use them the wrong way? Serious question.

Would you like to also know if a perpetrator was left-handed or ginger or blood type A?

No. Because that doesn't matter. Just as ethnicity doesn't matter. Criminal is a criminal.

Re: Behind Pfizer's vaccine, an understated husband-and-wife “dream team”

#110

Post by spaetzleesser »

johnwalkr wrote: post #92
sschueller wrote: post #2

Why is Pfizer always mentioned in the news when it is BioNTech and Pfizer is "just" a partner? Just as the Chinese drugmaker Fosun is. Sure credit goes to both but this "Dream Team" is BioNTech.

I feel like there’s a threshold for fame that needs to be met for giving credit in the English-language, mainstream media. A famous name like Stephen Hawking would get directly credited for a result. A less famous researcher’s result would get credited to their school (eg MIT). Outside of well known western names and institutions, the result would get credited to the country (eg China or Japan). The exception is unde…

That’s my observation too. Whenever something is reported they try to attach a big name to the headline. Be it “Harvard”, “Elon Musk” or something else.

It seems this is another sign of inequality. The already famous get even more fame.

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