WASHINGTON — They’ve plastered a pharmaceutical CEO’s face on the side of a rented truck to protest “corporate welfare.” They’ve purchased Johnson & Johnson stock so they could attend the company’s annual shareholder meeting, at which they politely protested high drug prices and executive pay. In recent days, they’ve picketed the headquarters of vaccine manufacturers Pfizer and Moderna.
Yet for all their incitement, progressive groups like Oxfam, Public Citizen, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and Doctors Without Borders have long been seen by mainstream Washington more as irritants than power players in debates over health care. Before this week, the notion of a small-dollar advocacy coalition landing a major blow against the pharmaceutical industry seemed more likely to play out in an Aaron Sorkin drama than in real life.
On Wednesday, however, the groups achieved perhaps their biggest victory of the past two decades: a surprise decision by the Biden administration to urge the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive the intellectual property rights of companies manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines.
It seems the Biden administrations and those incompetent eight Democratic senators supporting waiving the patent IP did not do their research.
If Pfizer offer the vaccine at the cost for poor countries, how does waiving patent help lower the price? It seems India and African government are playing some games to avoid being blame by their people for their incompetent. At least if the vaccine is made by Pfizer or Modern, one can be sure of handling and quality since it is not easy to handle mRNA vaccine. The flu vaccine that was not keep at proper temperature end up killing people in Korea.
India had patent to Astra Zeneca and Moderna had open its patents for free to anybody. They can make the DNA or mRNA vaccine as they choose.
The Eight Democratic senators, do your research and stops playing politics. Your stand shows how incompetent you guys for supporting something without doing any research. I am glad Sanders and Warren did not end up as president. That would be a curse to US if they end up as president. The eight Democratic senators asking Biden to waive the patents Ip needs to be voted out of the office for their incompetency.
What we need is sell at cost or donate vaccine to those countries who can’t afford the vaccine not some political game of waiving the IP that can discourage the pharma to tackle the next pandemic seeing they can lost patent protections.
If they get rid of all incentives, why would any company invest in new drugs?