Wow! Lots of good news today. The Dow is up over 900 points. Pence says that COVID-19 will be in the review mirror by Memorial Day, just a week away. What’s driving all this optimism? Simple, Moderna Therapeutics, a company with an estimated valuation of near $5 billion in 2016, says that they have a successful COVID-19 vaccine. And, there stock has soared, up over 225% in 2020.
A quick look at readily available information on Moderna should set off a whole lot of alarm bells. We need to take a look at the links between Moderna and the Trump administration. For starters, Mohamed Moncef Slaoui has been tapped to head-up Operation Warp-Speed, the Trump administration’s effort to develop a COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year, a timeline that many scientists believe is unrealistic. Slaoui resigned from the board of Moderna Therapeutics to take on his new assignment. He has had a long career in the pharmaceutical industry working on the development of a number of vaccines. However, it seems that a good portion of his career has been on the business and financial end of the pharmaceuticals, not on research and science. Before joining the board of Moderna, he was at the European venture capital firm Medicxi.
Moderna, under to leadership of CEO Stéphane Bancel, has been described as a highly secretive company. Moderna has never developed a successful vaccine. One former scientist employed by the firm has described the company as an “investment firm” that hopes to maybe develop a successful drug. Sounds just like the kind of company that Donald Trump and Jared Kushner would like to be associated with.
I would like to see a successful vaccine developed quickly as much as anyone. This is a fearful pandemic. But we cannot allow ourselves to be fooled by the con-man in the White House even one more time. There is a very real possibility that we are being sold “snake-oil” to make us think that the danger has passed, we can all go back to work, vote for Donald Trump in November and live happily ever after. Don’t fall for it!