First of all, watch the video through, so that we get familiar with everything that is being said.
Now watch the video more carefully, paying attention to the following:
- 'As far as pharmaceuticals are concerned': We use the expression 'as far as ... is concerned' to specify which person or thing we are talking about. We can also use the expression 'as far as I'm concerned' to express our opinion about something, especially when it's different from other people's.
- Use of 'as far as I know' to introduce your opinion about something, but allowing that there may be facts that you do not know, remember etc. You can also use the expressions 'as far as I can remember', 'as far as I can see.'
- Use of I mean to paraphrase what you have just said and make yourself clear.
- Use of really to emphasize the verb.
- Use of granted to admit that something is true.
- Use of just to emphasize the verb.
- Conversation fillers to gain thinking time: you know, like
- Showing agreement: Granted; This is true
- Use of so as a linking word.
- Use of in terms of with the meaning of 'with regard', 'concerning', 'in relation to something'
As far as pharmaceuticals are concerned, they certainly command a lot of clout, and if you look at the amount of money spent annually in the United States, or at least as far as the United States is concerned, on pharmaceuticals, the numbers are staggering. I mean we drug ourselves up to a ridiculous level, and I really think that a lot of it is unnecessary, the majority.
Granted, I mean, it’s a huge of the part of the budget of the gross domestic product. I think it’s 15 or 16 percent of everything that is spent in America, for example, in United States I should say, is spent on the, the medical industry, hospitals, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, but I just don’t think in this situation what people are saying about, you know like there is some sort of a conspiracy by pharmaceutical companies to make a killing, to make a lot of money out of this, I just don’t think that exists. I think there’s been past cases of pandemics, serious, they’ve been serious enough to warrant investing in this type of research today.
This is true, but to address your first point, like I said, I do think that the word a conspiracy and total invention is going above and beyond what, what people like myself might believe. And what I want to clarify and say is that it’s clear that they have, these pharmaceuticals have a vested interest. In the same way the media has a vested interest in controversy. So, when you see things like interviews with Presidents or politicians they are always asking the questions to fuel fire, and doing things to gather attention of people that could in some way fatten their pockets, and in terms of the last pandemic, pandemic, the one that comes to mind is 1918. That was a horrendous killer. People were talking about the four horsemen of the apocalypse. When you consider that with the World War. However, if we look at the leaps and bounds that we made in medicine from then, it’s also as staggering as the numbers of people that died then. I recently read an account of a man’s experience in a hospital, this was I think after World War II or just before. So, another decade or two, after 1918, and the conditions were horrendous, open air surgery, doctors wearing business suits, medical students coming in and prodding people, entire communal rooms like we see today in travel hostels. I think that things are a lot more calmed down now, and I think that shows in the fact that as far as I know there has never been a comparable pandemic to what they are predicting could be happening this year, this time around. Certainly never in my life.
