Content warning: certain details in this story are disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.
In a Senate disclosure form released on April 2nd, 2022, J.D. Vance acknowledged a financial stake in AmplifyBio, a West Jefferson, Ohio-based startup company that bills itself as “advancing the quality of human health by creating next-generation platforms, tools, and services to accelerate the development of therapies and vaccines.”
Vance’s investment in AmplifyBio is problematic for a number of reasons.
As Donald Trump’s current-VP candidate at the time of this writing, Vance is part of a Republican ticket that is openly at war with vaccine mandates. Investing in (and profiting from) a company whose core mission revolves around vaccines is duplicitous to say the least. In addition, AmplifyBio’s hiring practices contradict Vance’s often-repeated gripes that “gender ideology” and “woke culture” are destroying America. As a thirsty “culture warrior” on the hard-right, Vance frequently demonizes immigrants, lambastes “critical race theory” and blasts “radical gender ideology.”
But the company in which both he and Narya, his venture-capital firm, invest is notably progressive in its H.R. practices. In job listings for positions in its new South San Francisco office, AmplifyBio seeks applicants from the “LGBTQIA+ community” and says it forbids discrimination based on “gender expression” and even “citizenship status.”
All job postings do come with another requirement — one Vance also has been vocal in opposing during the campaign. “We are committed to the safety and wellness of our employees and customers,” the biotech company’s ads insist. “Therefore, COVID vaccination is required.”
Hypocritical investing practices aren’t the only noteworthy facet of this investment. AmplifyBio is accused of testing practices that, according to reporting, are gruesome, inhumane and cruel. As Tim Dickinson reports in Rolling Stone:
behind the gleaming walls of its Columbus-area campus, AmplifyBio operates a disturbing enterprise. Its core business is testing experimental drugs developed by other companies. AmplifyBio tests many of these substances on live animals, including monkeys and dogs.
One experiment on highly intelligent macaques called for drilling in the primates’ skulls to inject vaccines directly in their brains. In another, dozens of beagle dogs were used to test an “analog of the neurotransmitter creatine”; 15 died in the process and 2 more were found dead later, according to Dickinson. The company had planned to test the neurotransmitter at higher levels but opted not to, given the complications/deaths.
Another incident included a failed attempt at a “squeeze mechanism.” Dickinson continues: “Instead of being immobilized, however, the primate wormed its way into ‘a gap … at the top of the cage and got stuck,’ the report records. ‘While attempting to free itself the animal became unconscious.’ The lab team tried to revive the macaque but ‘ultimately the animal was determined to be deceased.’”
After being cited by the USDA, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) called the company “incompetent” and said government response “will not undo the terror and pain that this monkey experienced.”
Other monkeys suffered burns on their genitals, and in a later experiment, were intentionally infected with botulism to test efficacy of a treatment for that toxic illness. They all reportedly “succumbed to prior-scheduled euthanasia.”
All of these details about inhumane experiments make Vance’s comments about COVID vaccine mandates on Fox News even more awkward: “I’ve got a four year old and a one year old boy; I am sick of these bureaucrats experimenting on my children, because that’s what they’re doing.”
