Biden administration wants to waive the intellectual property rights of Pfizer, Moderna, etc. It is not clear this would have any impact on production of vaccines in the near/medium term.
Does anyone think this is a good idea? Should the US government be able to strip these property rights? Might this have an impact on research in the next pandemic?
IMO, if the USA wants to get vaccines to the 3rd world, it should purchase said vaccines and ship them there. Biden’s stance is completely hare-brained.
Disclosure of the means to produce these vaccines is the quid pro quo for the right to exclude, so waiving the rights is not right in my opinion.
Now, requiring patent holders to license based on a Reasonable and non-discriminatory basis (RAND), or to do something to encourage patent pooling amongst those inventing and producing the vaccines I could support under these circumstances.
For those of you interested in the legal and policy implications, you can read the article at the link
Link: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1405&context=law_papers
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The best approach for getting safe vaccines quickly to the third world is for rich countries like The Vatican and the US to purchase those vaccines at the best negotiated rates and send them there. I am in favor of peeling off half a trillion from any one of Joe’s multi-trillion “plans” to do that.
This is bleeding edge technology that requires ultra-low temperatures. Fatima’s Aspirin Factory in Somalia is not going to get the job done properly. These companies answered the bell for the world by developing the vaccines. Stealing their technology is not righteous or just. Any reasonable person will wonder about the signals it sends for the next pandemic.
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third world countries, what with the need to maintain temperatures as low as -90F and their cutting edge technology...but with 7B+ people on our planet, it'll take some time to bring this pandemic under control, so some plan needs to be developed that creates a much faster response to not only our (world's) COVID-19 needs, but also the next outbreak. This new technology holds much promise in combatting variants and almost any new threat.
While there are genuine economic interests that need to be factored in...there are geo-political issues as well. Being perceived as the world's "Mr. Scrooge" is IMHO not in our long-term national interest...surely, there is "common ground" that can be found.
We are the most generous nation in the world already.
the USA has gotten enough credit yet for all that we've shared...but we can't ever stop and rest on our laurels. This pandemic is devastating other parts of the planet, and will continue to for quite awhile.
A transactional mindset still exists, however, in the face of a biological catastrophe (witness India)...also, given the nature of viruses, it would be in our own interest to beat this "forest fire" back asap so that the odds of a worse variant don't mount too high.
Pardon me for falling back on the quote from Dag Hammarskjold..."For it is always the stronger one who is to blame"...the rest of the world is watching us.
...program in recent history.
Started by Dubya, it has saved over ten million lives. Trump tried to kill it...but ended up embracing it too.
And if you’ve never heard of it, that is an indictment of how pitiful we are at publicizing our successes.
Do you realize you are being disingenuous and just not care? Or do you not realize it?
Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-lessons-from-bushs-effort-against-aids-11616959045?st=yhq9zlv07op3vch&reflink=article_copyURL_share
And you might note that I am praising Bush here. As we all should.
He leaned on the FDA to allow generics to be sold abroad while the patents were still in effect.
Link: https://forumresearch.org/storage/documents/annals-pdf/2013v15n1_quinones-rivera.pdf
Bush pressed to get the FDA approval process sped up. Just like Trump did with the vaccines. Bush specifically did NOT waive patent protections. The USA paid for an awful lot of useful drugs to be produced in the USA and sent to Africa. That is exactly the opposite of Biden’s hare-brained scheme.
Biden’s plan is idiocy of the highest order. Even Merkel thinks he’s a moron.
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multiple generics in countries where the pharmaceuticals really didn't have markets. I do not read it as wholesale tossing of the patent protections.
I would say that Biden is reckless here...except that I don't believe that he personally understands the consequences of anything he is doing any longer.
But he convinced the pharmaceutical companies involved to let generics be produced and sold abroad.
Which, in effect, is not much different.
It was a great move - saved (literally) millions of lives.
Biden’s actions won’t be nearly as consequential - these vaccines are much tougher to make.
Convincing someone to act in a certain way is qualitatively different, not quantitatively different, than forcing them to do something.
What you said is like saying, "OK, true, night is not totally like day."
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The vaccines?
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Some things never change.
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You were the one who said they took away patent rights.
And Tyrone wonders why I typically don't waste my time googling stuff other people allude to, but won't explain, and just provide links that also don't explain.
Saved millions. One of the best things this country has ever done.
still make a lot of money and the vaccines gets delivered faster.
Rather than take away the incentives to innovate?
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