Moderna, Moncef Slaoui and its Funding Partnerships - America's Tangled Vaccine Web

The hunt for the world's first coronavirus vaccine is taking place with numerous companies and countries seeking to solve the COVID-19 pandemic.  At the forefront, we find one American company that has been given a clear advantage in the process.

On May 15, 2020, Donald Trump announced this:

"Today I want to update you on the next stage of this momentous medical initiative.  It’s called Operation Warp Speed.  That means big and it means fast.  A massive scientific, industrial, and logistical endeavor unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.  You really could say that nobody has seen anything like we’re doing, whether it’s ventilators or testing.  Nobody has seen anything like we’re doing now, within our country, since the Second World War.  Incredible.

Its objective is to finish developing and then to manufacture and distribute a proven coronavirus vaccine as fast as possible.  Again, we’d love to see if we could do it prior to the end of the year.  We think we’re going to have some very good results coming out very quickly.  In addition, it will continue accelerating the development of diagnostics and breakthrough therapies….

To date, Operation Warp Speed has brought together all of the experts across the federal government from places like the NIH, CDC, FDA, and many other agencies.  This historic partnership will now bring together the full resources of the Department of Health and Human Services with the Department of Defense.  And we know what that means.  That means the full power and strength of military — the military.  And that — really, talking about the logistics — if we get it, when we get it.  That means the logistics, getting it out, so that everybody can take it.

And today, we’re proud to announce the addition of two of the most highly respected and skilled professionals in our country — worldwide respected.  Operation Warp Speed’s chief scientist will be Dr. Moncef Slaoui, a world-renowned immunologist who helped create 14 new vaccines — that’s a lot of our new vaccines — in 10 years, during his time in the private sector.  One of the most respected men in the world in the production and, really, on the formulation of vaccines." (my bolds)

Notice "...so that EVERYONE can take it".  That sounds pretty non-optional to me.

Until Trump's announcement, Dr. Slaoui was a former member of Moderna, Inc.'s Board of Directors as shown here:

While Moderna may not be a "tip of the tongue" pharmaceutical company, Washington is, in fact, very familiar with the company.  Here is an announcement from Moderna dated April 16, 2020:

Thanks to American taxpayers, the company has benefited from a "donation" of $483 million from the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority or BARDA, part of the Department of Health and Human Services as shown here:

Not only has Moderna benefitted from the generosity of American taxpayers, it has benefitted from none other than the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as shown here:

...and here:

As if those connections weren't enough, Dr. Slaoui is also connected to the Gates Foundation through his position on the Board of Directors of the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) as shown here:

..., I bet that you can't guess who funds IAVI?  That's right, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation as shown here:

Moderna's timeline of the development of its mRNA-1273 vaccine answer to the COVID-19 pandemic includes this, noting the highlighted portion of the announcement:

While you may not have heard of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), its mission is to "stimulate and accelerate the development of vaccines against emerging infectious diseases and enable access to these vaccines for people during outbreaks.  CEPI also claims the following:

"If a highly contagious and lethal airborne pathogen, with the characteristics of the 1918 Spanish Flu, were to emerge today it is estimated that nearly 33 million people worldwide would die in just 6 months.

The costs of emerging infectious diseases are vast—in both human and economic terms. Recent economic work suggests that the annual global cost of moderately severe to severe pandemics is roughly $570 billion, or 0.7 percent of global income. The cost of a severe pandemic like the 1918 Spanish flu could total as much as 5 percent of global GDP."

Note the use of the "33 million people worldwide would die in just six months" mantra, not entirely dissimilar to the fear being used during the initial days of the pandemic.

By now, you probably have a pretty good idea of who is funding CEPI but here is the list of founding and current donors:

As well, two voting members of CEPI's Scientific Advisory Committee are representatives of the Gates family:

Here's one of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's donations to CEPI:

Let's close this rather complicated posting by looking back at Moderna.  Thus far, Moderna has tested its mRNA-1273 vaccine on 45 individuals between the ages of 18 and 55 with the company claiming success and announcing the start of Phase 2 testing on more human subjects.  It has also announced that it is partnering with Lonza U.S. to produce up to 1 billion doses of its new experimental product mRNA-1273 starting in July 2020:

Unfortunately, by its own admission, Moderna has not successfully created a vaccine for coronaviruses as shown in this quote:

"We had previously collaborated with the NIH on a vaccine for MERS-CoV, which is a different type of coronavirus than the current pandemic. While the program was only at the research stage, it provided significant insights as we launched our efforts for mRNA-1273. Before the Phase 1 study for mRNA-1273, we had not previously tested a coronavirus vaccine in humans."

Caveat emptor.  Moderna is not unique in its inability to create a safe vaccine for coronaviruses; there has never been a vaccine for coronavirus at any time.

The complicated web of one of the world's wealthiest philanthropic armchair virologist, pharmaceutical research and his links to the newly appointed "vaccine czar" Dr. Slaoui should cause us to ponder the rapid "Warp Speed" development of a vaccine dedicated to ending the COVID-19 pandemic.  There are just so many connections between the main players in this drama that conflicts of interest are certain to trump solid science.  With Moderna having a half billion dollars worth of taxpayer funding and the company's solid connections to the Bill Gates "vaccine  funding machine", I suspect that we already have a pretty good idea that the mRNA-1273 vaccine is going to be the vaccine of choice.

Remember this quote about the COVID-19 vaccine from Donald Trump: 

"...so that everyone can take it."