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Requisition Big Pharma! Author: Editorial Governments have financed the Covid-19 vaccines, by subsidies for research and trials and preparing production facilities, by advance orders before it was even known whether the vaccines would work, and by exempting the pharmaceutical firms from risks of court cases if something goes wrong. The labour movement should demand that governments now requisition the “intellectual property” produced with that finance — i.e. make the patents available to...

Yves here. Aside from Bill Gates’ unsavory role in defending the right of Big Pharma to rake in profits at the expense of the public during a massive public health crisis, there is also the wee problem of determining what selling a vaccine at cost would amount to. As a client put it, pointing to a conference room chair, “What does that chair cost? I can make it cost whatever I want to.” Specifically, big companies have considerable latitude as to the costs and overheads they allocate to p...

This is viewer supported news. Please do your part today.Donate As rich countries race to roll out their vaccination programs, leaders in the Global South and global health advocates are increasingly decrying vaccine hoarding that has pushed poorer countries to the back of the line during the pandemic. Some rich countries have secured enough COVID-19 vaccines to inoculate their populations several times over, while poorer countries struggle to secure enough doses, almost certainly prolonging th...

Share the TechnologyExperts say we need to end major pharmaceutical monopoly on the supply and price of COVID vaccines News Highlights: Share the TechnologyExperts say we need to end major pharmaceutical monopoly on the supply and price of COVID vaccines This is an urgent transcript. The copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN: This is democracy now! I am Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh. South African President Cyril Ramaphosa is calling on rich countries to stop hoarding excess doses...

Zim joins India, SA in trade waiver efforts Elita Chikwati Senior Reporter Zimbabwe has joined South Africa, India and other countries in sponsoring the proposed waiver from certain provisions of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement for the Prevention, Containment and Treatment of Covid-19. The waiver is aimed at fast-tracking local production to ensure equitable distribution and easy accessibility of vaccine and other medicines as efforts to curb the Covi...

As things stand, even the most optimistic scenarios today cannot assure access to vaccines and therapeutics for the majority of the population, in rich and poor countries, by the end of 2021.

Scientists clash over ethics of global vaccine roll-out International mechanisms for sharing COVID-19 vaccines have come under fire from scientists around the world for reinforcing rather than combating inequity in global health provision, and for encouraging parochial nationalist responses to the pandemic. The ethical furore has led to finger-pointing among public health experts eager to attribute blame for shortages in the supply of vaccines at national level. Big pharma, with the support of ...

Pandemic response: Science has delivered; will WTO keep pace? Brajendra Navnit Filed on January 13, 2021 The existing flexibilities under the Trips Agreement are not adequate as these were not designed keeping pandemics in mind. A proposal by India, South Africa and eight other countries has called on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to exempt member countries from enforcing some patents, and other Intellectual Property (IP) rights under the organisation’s Agreement on Trade-Related...

8 A proposal by India, South Africa and eight other countries calls on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to exempt member countries from enforcing some patents, and other Intellectual Property (IP) rights under the organisations Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, known as Trips, for a limited period of time. It is to ensure that IPRs do not restrict the rapid scaling-up of manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines and treatments. While a few members have raised concer...

A man in Soweto, South Africa receives an injection as he participates in clinical trial for a Covid-19 vaccine in June 2020. © 2020 Siphiwe Sibeko/Pool/ AFP via Getty Images Julia Mwangaza* is a 41-year-old health practitioner at a hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania’s largest city. When I spoke to her recently, she expressed fear that, given the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the region, the health workforce would soon be overwhelmed and unable to care...