Elective Affinities

• Francesco Mercadante, Che cosa hanno in comune Pfizer, BlackRock, Facebook e le banche? (What do Pfizer, BlackRock, Facebook and banks have in common?), Econopoly–Il Sole 24 Ore, February 2, 2021

In 2000, The Washington Post, while conducting an investigation into Pfizer, brought to the attention of the general public just the controversial case of a grave outbreak in which the pharmaceutical company had played — to say the least — a creepy and disturbing role. Specifically, the facts date back to 1996, when some children in the Nigerian city of Kano, affected by meningococcal meningitis, were subjected to an experiment without any kind of authorisation. On that occasion, the experimentation was carried out by administering an experimental drug, namely trovafloxacin, which according to accusations caused a number of cases of death and irreparable damage. We feel compelled to provide our last gross reflection here. It does not refer to the sense of scandal, since most likely fraud is older than man. The same can be said for financial plots. That refers instead to the obvious and clear separation between the moral status of the citizen and that of economic potentates. Be mindful, the problem exists and is serious: if it is true and irrefutable that we cannot condemn and break up certain empires because their collapse would generate such economic crises as civil society can hardly afford — Lehman Brothers docet — it is equally true that an ordinary citizen, due to much less serious errors, is at risk of social and legal catastrophe. Yet to this day COVID-19 “mostly” hit ordinary citizens. [Read more].