Credit where credit's undue!

Pfizer: We're the lesser of two evils.
By a narrow margin. In this one instance.

-Pfizer's new slogan

Well done Pfff...well done Pfffiff...sorry, I'm not sure I can actually type it out. But what I'm trying to do here is offer the most reserved and qualified applause possible to Pfizer. Why? Good question. I mean, the pharmaceutical industry as a thing is up there with the gun NRA and QAnon on the list of things that are ruining everything. Like, it's because of companies like Pfizer that we're customers instead of patients and have to sit through ads on YouTube for drugs with ridiculous names designed to treat diseases we don't know if we actually have, but should ask our doctors for about. 

But today they shut down Mike Pence when he tried to take credit for a COVID-19 vaccine, so...good for them? The Vice President de-elect tweeted:

Pictured: the tweet that prompted Pfizer to tell Pence to pfuck off.

Ironically the time and effort put into
the logo far outstrips anything the
administration has done to combat COVID.

Ok, cool, so Pfizer did indeed announce that their vaccine is 90% effective, and that is huge news, although not worth all caps. Nothing is worth all caps. And Pfizer was asked by the government to develop a vaccine as part of Operation Warp Speed which-yes, Warp Speed. I'm as upset by their coopting of Star Trek terminology as you are, but let's move on. Anyway, Operation Warp Speed is a Trump administration plan to develop and distribute a vaccine as quickly as possible. It has a logo and everything. Ok, check and check, why shouldn't they take credit? Oh, because they had no hand in Pfizer's vaccine beyond saying "Hey, you know what would be great? A vaccine for this pandemic we're trying very hard to ignore." 

Which, I mean, let's say you're a drug company and you like money and a global pandemic breaks out. Were you waiting for Donald Trump to ask you to cook something up? Like, the suggestion here is that one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world needed the former host of The Apprentice to suggest that they do the thing they actually exist to do. 

"Thanks President Trump. Without your brilliant suggestion that
we develop a vaccine against the worst pandemic in decades, we never
would have thought of it. In many ways, you're the real hero here."

-Pfizer R&D

Pictured: the vaccine that was
totally my idea and Pfizer stole...

When this all started, I think we all thought to ourselves, I sure hope someone comes up with a vaccine, I know I did. But that's not the same thing as coming up with a vaccine. A Pfizer spokesperson responded to the can't be former too soon Vice President, saying that they were never a part of Warp Speed, which turned out to not be entirely true. They later clarified that while there was a funding agreement in place, the company had yet to receive any money and developed the vaccine on their own dime-well, probably several million dimes.

And as loath as I am to clap for a billion dollar corporation that profits from people's misery, they did call the can't be former soon enough Vice President out on his desperate grab for something, anything resembling a worthwhile accomplishment. 

"Thanks to our criminal mishandling of the Pandemic, Pfizer
will be able to sell millions of vaccines so...you're welcome."

-Mike Pence, making the "when life gives 

you COVID, make COVID-ade" argument