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Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#81

Post by throwaway6734 »

throwaway4good wrote: post #27

Something here smells deeply hypocritical. Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans. The US still upholds the export bans setup by the Trump administration. Biden can just revoke those. Yet he promotes the idea of waivering vaccine patents knowing well how hard t…

>Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans.

Do you know specifically which materials?

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#82

Post by wayoutthere »

apexalpha wrote: post #74
throwaway4good wrote: post #27

Something here smells deeply hypocritical. Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans. The US still upholds the export bans setup by the Trump administration. Biden can just revoke those. Yet he promotes the idea of waivering vaccine patents knowing well how hard t…

The US put an export ban on basically everything regarding vaccines, very early on. If you look at the amount of vaccines produced , the US and EU are fairly close to each other. The difference in Vaccine rollout comes from the fact that the EU exports vaccines to other countries while the US does not. As a European I would've been in favour of more export controls, but a total ban seems to go too far. Why should 18…

> Why should 18 years olds in the EU/US receive a vaccine before 75 year olds in other countries?

I don’t know what the EU governments kicked in, but the US basically threw tens of billions of dollars at the US pharma giants to bankroll the wide-scale rollout of not one but three vaccines. The patents are largely European, but the rapid scale-up of production was only possible because of US contributions (true on both sides of the ocean as the US paid to build factories in Europe too in exchange for priority access).

But on a larger scale, individual outcomes are somewhat meaningless in the scope of government. Each country’s government has a duty to protect the public health of its citizens, which means trying to get to herd immunity within its own population. It’s like putting on your own mask before helping someone else.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#83

Post by _y5hn »

makomk wrote: post #53
throwaway4good wrote: post #27

Something here smells deeply hypocritical. Currently vaccine companies such as the German Curevac (which is the vaccine company Trump famously tried to buy) is being held back by lack of core ingredients which are under American export bans. The US still upholds the export bans setup by the Trump administration. Biden can just revoke those. Yet he promotes the idea of waivering vaccine patents knowing well how hard t…

Yeah, and if Trump was still in power I have zero doubt the media would call him out on what a cynical stunt this is - but Biden is in charge now, and that makes a huge difference to how they report on everything.

Why is that do you think?

To revert self-serving orders, require extraordinary political clout above and beyond. Can that be done regarding every "bad" decision? A competent administration must not undo the "good" decisions as well.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#84

Post by specialist »

Weighing the lives of billions against intellectual property claims and turf.

--

Pay the companies whatever they demand to do whatever it takes to get everyone vaccinated asap. Now and into the future.

Graciously award everyone involved Freedom Medals™.

Then later, claw back any and all windfall profits thru radical cashectomies.

Pragmatism is so obvious and easy. And depressingly uncommon.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#85

Post by _y5hn »

apexalpha wrote: post #78
makomk wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and if Trump was still in power I have zero doubt the media would call him out on what a cynical stunt this is - but Biden is in charge now, and that makes a huge difference to how they report on everything.

It must sting that the (arguably) only successful thing to come out of this America First policy is now being credited to the Biden administration. For all the mess Biden has inherited, he also inherited a near perfect vaccine production program. The reversals issued in the first 100 days did not reverse any export bans or regulations the Trump admin put in place for the vaccine production and rollout.

The vaccine program was failing to rollout when Biden inherited it.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#86

Post by apexalpha »

_y5hn wrote: post #85
apexalpha wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It must sting that the (arguably) only successful thing to come out of this America First policy is now being credited to the Biden administration. For all the mess Biden has inherited, he also inherited a near perfect vaccine production program. The reversals issued in the first 100 days did not reverse any export bans or regulations the Trump admin put in place for the vaccine production and rollout.

The vaccine program was failing to rollout when Biden inherited it.

The vaccines first got approval in December 2020, it wasn't failing it was just starting up. European vaccine rollout also had starting aches but was then very quickly limited by the supply-side.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#87

Post by mbg721 »

true_religion wrote: post #69
zo1 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But somehow some random "throwaway" account on a forum has more info than all of Biden's advisers? "Benefit of the doubt" is just a cover. We must assume competence and intent on the administration's part and hold them accountable for it (or give them credit), otherwise we're letting our bias/favoritism show through.

Let's be fair. We all gave Trump the benefit of the doubt. It was only after years of broken promises, and angry outbursts that some people turned against him by default. Give Biden at least 1 year, and you'll see that some people are reflexively critical of him too.

Centrist voters may have given him some benefit of the doubt, but the news media never did and were never going to. Conservatives knew that ahead of time, which is why they voted for someone prone to angry outbursts.

Biden isn't exactly an outsider, and is just the face for scores of actual decision-makers in his administration; I don't think one more year is going to surprise anybody.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#88

Post by thecleaner »

This kind of lip-service to global equality and fairness is very typical of United States in general. The difference being that DJT was very vocal whereas during tenures of established politicians the packaging around these intentions is much much better. Problem with Trump was that he was crass. Biden isnt. So if people are wondering why would you support this waiver while withholding export bans is that pledging support to something that isn't possible is a much easier way to earn brownie points than comitting to something actionable.

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#89

Post by refurb »

yokaze wrote: post #15
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. I want creating a successful vaccine to be a bigger…

> I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. That is quite hyperbolic, because at worst it will reduce profits, but hardly "kill" them. > I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. The incentive to invest is the chance of future profits. Those still exists…

Really? Having the rules change in the middle of the game won’t affect investments?

I mean, what if the next company comes up with a cure for AIDS. Are they confident the IP won’t be broken either?

Re: Covid: US backs waiver on vaccine intellectual property

#90

Post by refurb »

neolog wrote: post #33
RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #6

I feel like this is killing the goose that laid the golden egg. The Covid vaccines are one of the greatest success stories of modern medicine ever, and are literally worth trillions. I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy as an incentive for companies to invest in the capabilities to produce these. I want creating a successful vaccine to be a bigger…

> I want the companies and investors in the pharmaceuticals that have made these to become fabulously wealthy They were already fabulously wealthy. Moderna alone had $232 million revenue last year.

Net loss was $747 million for the year ended December 31, 2020 compared to $514 million for the year ended December 31, 2019.

https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d...

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