Russell Brand

“Bill Maher: I’ll just say one more thing about the Pharma part of it. Purdue Pharma, you’re familiar there is a terrific movie, a Michael Keaton movie “Dope Sick,”

Russell Brand: If you need an opioid, Purdue pharma will sell you one at a reasonable price whether you need them or not. I should add these opioids could be quite moreish and some would say addictive so do be cautious.

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Bill Maher: October 2020 when the Justice Department announced Purdue Pharma pleaded guilty to felony charges of defrauding federal agencies, violating anti-kickback laws, marketing opioids to hundreds of doctors that it suspected were writing illegal prescriptions, and then lying about it to the DEA. So, they got slapped with an $8.3 billion fine. My last question is the cognitive dissonance that I see that people say oh my god the pharmaceutical industry is capable of doing this but when it comes to COVID no questions asked. It just does seem weird.

John Heilemann: We have a complicated relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. Anybody who has ever had a family member who had cancer and seen what life saving drugs can do for people.

Bill Maher: It also may have given it to them.

John Heilemann: And it may have. But this is actually kind of my point. The reality is if you have a black-and-white point of view the pharmaceutical industry is engaged in a giant conspiracy to f**k us all over you are denying the reality that many people have lives saved by those drugs. If you say the pharmaceutical industry is incapable of error or malign behavior you are equally an idiot. The reality is that in a capitalist society there are gonna be companies seeking profit will do things that are incredibly innovative and good and do things that are incredibly terrible and exploitive that seems like the right position to have.

Bill Maher: I agree, let’s just be. Just be skeptical.

John Heilemann: Right.

Russell Brand: Out of respect for you and your show I brought some facts.

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Russell Brand: The Pandemic created at least 40 new big pharma billionaires. The pharmaceutical corporations like Moderna and Pfizer made a thousand dollars of profit every second from the COVID-19 vaccine. More than 2/3 of Congress received campaign funding from pharmaceutical companies in the 2020 election. Pfizer Chairman Albert Bourla told TIME Magazine in 2020 that his company was developing the COVID vaccine for the good of humanity not for money and of course, Pfizer made $100 billion dollars in profit in 2022. May I just mention finally and this is also a fact that you the American public funded the development of that, the german public funded the BioNTech vaccine, when it came to the profits they took the profits when it came to the funding you paid for the funding.

Bill Maher: Okay I will just add one thing. It is possible these are greedy capitalists who made a lot of money and also there are a lot of people who need the vaccine.”