Milk deliveries, mung beans, and AstraZeneca

We’ve been getting oat milk delivered in glass bottles to our home twice a week for a month now and we love it. The milk is made by Oato, a British business using British-grown oats. This week the glass bottles changed and have a message printed on the side.

I find it odd that people have to be told this. It must be the younger generation who missed out on the milkman of the past and aren’t aware how it works. They deliver full milk bottles and take away empty glass bottles at the same time. Silly people!

I’ve started growing mung beans. Apparently this is a thing vegans do, or so I’ve been told, so I thought I’d better do it. We buy the dried mung beans then give them water. After a few days they sprout and you can eat them. They’re delicious. Elizabeth eats them by the spoonful. They’re crunchy with a slightly nutty flavour and are great in pasta, salads, sandwiches, or just on their own.

Here are the beans.

A few days later they look like this.

There was a good article in the Guardian last week about the AstraZeneca vaccine and its PR problems. Many people might not know but AstraZeneca is not making a profit from the vaccine. They’re selling it at cost. Instead of being thanked they’ve been unjustly attacked. The French president called it “quasi-ineffective” in over-65s and initially gave it only to younger age groups. They’ve since completely reversed that decision but to confuse the population further they now only recommend it for the over 55s.

Several countries in Europe then completely suspended its use because of blood-clotting fears but these appear to be unfounded. However, the damage has been done in countries with popluations that are already vaccine-hesitant.

Then there have been the rows with Europe over supply. They don’t appear to want to use (there are reports of a vaccine pile up) or support the vaccine yet they continue to hound the company for failing to supply the expected number of doses. Last week they embarrasingly raided an Italian factory because they suspected it was hiding doses of vaccine for the UK but it turned out they were for Europe.

The Guardian article says morale at AstraZeneca is plummeting and that it “had never received due credit for its decision to take no profit”. They also explain the reason for the complicated trial results.

Oxford University’s scientists who initiated the early trials were academics, investigating the best way to prevent this disease. “I think that some of the difficulties were that the trials were being set up by Oxford to answer public health questions, whereas very clearly Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna’s trials in the US were set up to get FDA approval,” Stephen Evans, professor of pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, told the Guardian.

Pfizer and Moderna are making billions from their vaccines. Maybe AstraZeneca should start charging the ungrateful bastards too.