The video that Dilettante posted showed that the company that made the drug said it wouldn't work. Now, they wouldn't be the ONLY one to profit if it works, because it's probably off patent (I haven't looked that up, but it sounds like it's been around for a LONG time, and patents don't last all that long), but they'd certainly be in line for a substantial boost to their profit if that worked...and yet they are the one pharma company that we KNOW to be disparaging it.

For that reason, I don't think the people disparaging Ivermectin for a profit motive makes a whole lot of sense. The only one that we know stands to profit is also the only one we know to be disparaging it.

However, you make a good point about conspiracies. Anybody who has paid even casual attention to history knows that conspiracies happen all the time. Profit may not be the single biggest source of conspiracies, but it's probably in the top two. The one I think is higher is 'saving face', but it's debatable.

In this case, I just don't see it. Still, it technically IS a conspiracy theory when you state that you believe (a theory) there is an organized effort (a conspiracy) to create a certain outcome.

I believe a situation arose where business could be done, and business was done. Whether it is vaccines (everybody and their brother seemed to be making one, and racing to get them out) or Ivermectin, there was business to be done, and the companies that got there first stand to make money (except that Merck dissed Ivermectin, so it's as if they don't want to make money).

I think Sapator's kind of right. He's certainly right that the EU got the short end of the stick, and I'd say that they largely did it to themselves due to their failure of leadership. I'm not sure that vaccines went to the highest bidder, though. Certain countries (the US, in particular, but a few others, as well, like Israel) wrote contracts before there was anything to buy. We bought doses of every vaccine we thought promising, and held them longer than we really needed to. People could rightfully be upset with the US over that, in my opinion, but it was done anyways, and often by Trump, who very explicitly didn't care who was upset by anything he did. I'd say that the politics of last fall largely caused the events we are living through, today. In other words: Yesterday this days madness did prepare.

As for the Chinese and Russian vaccines, they were VERY slow to perform solid stage III trials, and slow to publish the results. In the case of the Chinese vaccines, that seems to have been warranted, as they don't appear to be so effective. The sputnik vaccine is looking better. Of course, politics played a massive role in how those vaccines were distributed, and to who. Which mattered more, is a matter for debate.