What could possibly go wrong with this?
US backs waiving intellectual property rules on vaccines
The Biden administration on Wednesday joined calls for more sharing of the technology behind COVID-19 vaccines to help speed the end of the pandemic, a shift that puts the U.S. alongside many in the developing world who want rich countries to do more to get doses to the needy.
U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the government’s position, amid World Trade Organization talks about a possible temporary waiver of its protections that would allow more manufacturers to produce the life-saving vaccines.
“The Administration believes strongly in intellectual property protections, but in service of ending this pandemic, supports the waiver of those protections for COVID-19 vaccines,†Tai said in a statement.
She cautioned that it would take time to reach the required global “consensus†to waive the protections under WTO rules, and U.S. officials said it would not have an immediate effect on the global supply of COVID-19 shots.
So, it essentially would do very little anytime soon, but, it would annihilate the intellectual property of the companies that developed the vaccines. Not too mention the profits. Supposedly, the companies have made billions. But, that’s their gross profit: what’s their net profit? How much did they spend to develop the vaccines? Even if it is billions, that’s fine, they stepped up and created vaccines in short order to deal with a global pandemic not of their making (a classified study says that COVID may well have escaped from the Wuhan labratory)
The WTO’s General Council took up the issue of a temporary waiver for intellectual property protections on COVID-19 vaccines and other tools, which South Africa and India first proposed in October. The idea has gained support among some progressive lawmakers in the West.
More than 100 countries have come out in support of the proposal, and a group of 110 members of Congress — all fellow Democrats of Biden — sent him a letter last month that called on him to support the waiver.
For those thinking this is great, now imagine it's your IP, and it is being taken by government. Your hard work, time, effort, and funding. You still good? https://t.co/GVbZsmnPX4
— William Teach2 ??????? #refuseresist (@WTeach2) May 5, 2021
Do any of these people calling for the waiver have skin in the game? Let’s see about a waiver when it’s their IP on the block. Oh, and do any of these people have potential skin in the game, meaning they’ll make money off of the waiver?
Opponents — especially from industry — say a waiver would be no panacea. They insist that production of coronavirus vaccines is complex and can’t be ramped up by easing intellectual property. They also say lifting protections could hurt future innovation.
What if they arbitrarily decide to waive IP protections on other developments from pharmaceutical companies? Here’s CNN
In a decision on Covid-19 vaccine patents, Joe Biden chose humanity
President Joe Biden was between a shot and a hard place. In the end, he chose humanity.
The World Health Organization, countries like India and South Africa, and many within Biden’s own Democratic Party have long called for the temporarily loosening of pharmaceutical giants’ patents on Covid-19 vaccines. They argue that private profits should not take precedence over sharing critical knowledge that could save millions of lives. As America’s top infectious disease specialist, Dr. Anthony Fauci, put it in an interview with The Hill: “I believe we have a moral obligation … to make sure that the rest of the world does not suffer and die, as it were, from something we can help them with and help them prevent.”
What happens when it’s other drugs for the sake of humanity? What happens to development? Why not simply send the shots to India? Oh, wait, they’re doing that. After Joe restricted sending materials which could be used to make COVID vaccines to India.
And it’s very easy to talk about waiving Other People’s IP, right? Back to original article
The companies have made some efforts to provide vaccine doses to poor countries at prices well below what they’re charging wealthy nations.
For instance, Johnson & Johnson agreed last week to provide up to 220 million doses of its vaccine to the African Union’s 55 member states, starting in this year’s third quarter, and agreed in December to provide up to 500 million vaccines through 2022 for low-income countries via Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance.
So, why waive it? What’s happening with the vaccines made in European countries? How about China, Russia, and Iran (even though theirs supposedly are garbage)? Are they getting waived?
Thanks to the trillions of dollars the USA invested in Operation Warp Speed, I believe the IP rights to those vaccines already are public property. I could be wrong on that, but it is a standard practice for other similar contracts.
There is also a good case to be made that the vaccines are mostly useless so giving them away harms no one. The IP will be obsolete before anyone has the chance to use it.
Since we now have so many doses of the vaccines available, why aren’t we forcing them on all immigrants?
2 reasons:
1. The risk benefits calculations just doesn’t weight out. Immigrants are in the age group that is least likely to suffer any harm from getting COVID.
2. Meanwhile, the Vaccine is still not approved for use in Humans by the FDA, so forcing anyone to use it would be unethical. But using private businesses (like Delta airlines) to force people to use it is still OK.
I’m all for making medications more available, but seriously, Ayan Rand and George Orwell should be made required reading in school.