thinking the world is fueled by hugs and failed presidential runs though

It's good to see someone with such a deep insight into Bernie and his current position commenting on this. Someone that knows Bernie just wants to hug Moderna, and that Bernie is just a failed presidential run, as opposed to, ya know, recently becoming chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and very publicly stating he was going to go after Moderna.

In an interview, Sanders said that Moderna, whose only federally approved drug is the coronavirus vaccine that the company received nearly $2 billion in direct federal money to develop, is a “poster child” for the greed of the pharmaceutical industry. He plans to argue that CEO Stéphane Bancel, who Forbes estimates is worth more than $5 billion, and several other Moderna executives “profited” off the pandemic.

Bancel told the Wall Street Journal last month he was considering quadrupling the price of Moderna’s vaccine to as much as $130 per dose once the federal government drains its stockpile and insurers and individuals are responsible for purchasing them on their own. Since the start of the pandemic, the federal government has purchased vaccines and provided them free, and Moderna sold its booster shots to the government for about $25 per dose.

On Wednesday, after its CEO agreed to appear in front of Sanders’s committee, Moderna announced a new “patient assistance program” to begin this May that will provide millions of uninsured and underinsured Americans the vaccine free of cost. “Everyone in the United States will have access to Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine regardless of their ability to pay,” spokesman Chris Ridley said in a statement.

Moderna, which did not describe how the patient assistance program will work, also noted that patients who are insured will continue to receive the vaccine free through their insurance, regardless of price hikes.

Sanders, who chairs the committee for the first time this year, declined to say who else he wants to call before his committee, but claimed broadly that there is a “morality crisis” within the pharmaceutical industry and support across the political spectrum for putting pharma CEOs in the hot seat and tackling the issue of high prescription drug prices. He also mentioned concerns about how Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns The Washington Post, are handling unionizing efforts at their companies — and left the door open to questioning them, as well.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/15/bernie-sanders-calls-moderna-ceo-testify-proposed-vaccine-price-hike/

Bernie wants to follow the example of the 90s tobacco hearings, except broader and deeper. And you can be assured that Moderna, even with the US government shielding, would have been happy to charge egregiously for the vaccine. We've seen many corporations that get protected by the government that still go on to fuck over the people.

Could that have influenced the decision? Sure, but you're certitude that it's "100% to do with the DOJ" is ill-founded, and your interpretation that people pointing out Bernie's actions regarding the price hike think the world is "fueled by hugs and failed presidential runs though" only demonstrates how little you understand the people you criticize.