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Time to 'think about mandatory vaccination': Urusla
She noted that "if you look at the numbers we have now, 77% of the adults in the European Union vaccinated, or if you take the whole population, it's 66% -- and this means one-third of the European population is not vaccinated, these are 150 million people".
[...]
While the European Commission pre-purchased Covid vaccines for use in the EU, von der Leyen emphasised that the individual countries had the responsibility on how their vaccination programmes were done.
by Cat on Wed Dec 1st, 2021 at 07:53:39 PM EST
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Who in the EC is looking into the Cuban vaccines, to see if they are really safe for 2-year old children?
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Wed Dec 1st, 2021 at 08:02:43 PM EST
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Probably nobody. It's Cuban, after all.

It's also a conjugate vaccine, which have been in use almost 100 years now. So it's a pretty well known technology. Apparently the Cubans have also vaccinated close to two million kids with their vaccine since summer, and it seems to be both safe and effective.

And this is according to Nature. I doubt the sciency stuff doesn't matter, when we have "values" to defend.

by pelgus on Wed Dec 1st, 2021 at 08:48:16 PM EST
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What about the US? We're told that Biden and Fauci are only going by the science.
by gk (gk (gk quattro due due sette @gmail.com)) on Thu Dec 2nd, 2021 at 06:13:16 PM EST
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We were also told Iraq imported Nigerian yellow cake uranium to build nukes, was making chemical weapons, and had mobile bio-warfare laboratories.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre
by ATinNM on Sun Dec 5th, 2021 at 04:18:17 PM EST
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I'm not so sure that is a fair comparison though
by asdf on Thu Dec 9th, 2021 at 05:31:06 PM EST
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Bush years and role of Big Pharma ... the 9/11 event supported anti-terror regulation to detriment of civil rights and personal freedom. The anthrax letters were quite puzzling ... fear of WMD and radioactive material scare played indeed a large role.

Big Pharma and anthrax scare or anti-terror in general

Postal Anthrax Aftermath: Has Biodefense Spending Made Us Safer? | Scientific American - Nov. 1, 2008 |

NIAID director Anthony S. Fauci set an ambitious goal.

From Covid-19 vaccine mix-up between AstraZeneca and Pfizer BioNTech production ...

Emergent BioSolutions anthrax attacks in the United States. ... budget more typical of some big pharmaceutical companies.


'Sapere aude'

by Oui (Oui) on Thu Dec 9th, 2021 at 06:20:00 PM EST
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and Havana, Miami Syndrome
by Cat on Fri Dec 3rd, 2021 at 01:48:59 PM EST
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The Cuban Abdala vaccine has yet to receive WHO approval, a requirement for many countries.  Viet Nam, Venezuela, and Honduras either have or are in the process of purchasing the vaccine.  Practically speaking, Latin American and African countries are desperate to get vaccines and many may go ahead with purchase.

Cuba's bet on home-grown COVID vaccines is paying off: Preprint data show that a three-dose combo of Soberana jabs has 92.4% efficacy in clinical trials

When the COVID-19 pandemic began, Cuba decided not to wait on the rest of the world to develop vaccines. The United States' 60-year-old economic embargo against the country, which prevents US-made products from being exported there, would make it difficult for Cuba to acquire vaccines and therapies, researchers and officials knew. "It was best, for protecting our population, to be independent," says Vicente Vérez Bencomo, director-general of the Finlay Institute of Vaccines in Havana.

So the Finlay Institute and Cuba's other state-run biotechnology centres started developing their own COVID-19 vaccines in the hope that at least one of them would be effective. Their bet seems to be paying off: in a 6 November preprint published on medRxiv1, Vérez Bencomo and his colleagues report that one of the institute's vaccines, Soberana 02, is more than 90% effective in protecting against symptomatic COVID-19 infection when used in combination with a related vaccine. Importantly, the combination seems to be effective against the highly transmissible Delta variant of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which has caused surges in hospitalizations and death across the world and now accounts for nearly all COVID-19 cases in Cuba

As an aside, WHO is forecasting a shortage of syringes so it's completely pointless to stockpile vaccines that will only sit there and rot. Which would be par for the course since historically ~50% of vaccines sent to the Third World pass their 'Use By' date due to logistic barriers.

She believed in nothing; only her skepticism kept her from being an atheist. -- Jean-Paul Sartre

by ATinNM on Sun Dec 5th, 2021 at 04:15:25 PM EST
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