Adar Poonawalla slams Kanye West over \'irresponsible\' remarks on coronavirus vaccine

Adar Poonawalla slams Kanye West over 'irresponsible' remarks on coronavirus vaccine

Poonawalla's remark came after the rapper West, who in his serious bid for the United States presidential election said, "they want to put chips inside us. They want to do all kinds of things with us"

American rapper Kanye West and Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute

Adar Poonawalla, CEO of Serum Institute of India, has slammed American rapper Kanye West for his views regarding the novel coronavirus vaccine. Poonawalla, in a tweet, said, "Though we enjoy your music very much Kanye West, your views on vaccines come across as irresponsible and borderline dangerous, considering the influence you have today and may have in the future."

Poonawalla's remark came after the rapper West, who in his serious bid for the United States presidential election said, "they want to put chips inside us. They want to do all kinds of things with us," in a Forbes interview.

West added that he is "extremely cautious" about a coronavirus vaccine and called it "the mark of the beast." He went further and declared that "they (vaccine makers) want to put chips inside of us, they want to do all kinds of things, to make it where we can't cross the gates of heaven."

Rapper Kanye West had said that he is running a serious campaign for the White House under the banner of a self-styled Birthday Party committed to a presidency modelled after the fictional nation 'Wakanda' in the movie 'Black Panther'.

Forbes magazine published a story on Wednesday based on what it called four rambling hours of interviews with the 43-year-old musician and fashion designer who said he had dropped his support of the US President Donald Trump.

West, who has said he has bipolar disorder, announced his candidacy for the November 3 election in a brief tweet at the weekend. But he is yet to file any of the necessary paperwork to get on the ballot.

In the interview, West said he had never before voted in an election and had no campaign apparatus of any kind, but added: "Like anything I've ever done in my life, I'm doing (this) to win."

On the other hand, Poonawalla's Serum Institute is in a partnership with drugmaker AstraZeneca to manufacture and supply the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford. Serum Institute, under the deal, would supply around 1 billion doses of the vaccine in India and other low and middle-income countries, with a commitment to provide 400 million before the end of the year.

Recently, Poonawalla at a press conference had said, "Once we are confident of a safe and good vaccine for India and the world. We will certainly announce it when we are licensed by the Drug Controller (DCGI), but that is still at least six months away from now." He also said that the trials for the vaccine will be over only by the end of 2020.

(Edited by Vivek Dubey)

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