Bill Gates, Billionaire Philanthropy, and the Vaccine Patents

More on the patent issue, which is looking more like a trade secret issue. Note that I’m basically fine with a patent waiver. I just suspect it won’t have much practical effect.

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So yeah, looks like BIll Gates with his zero fucking health care knowledge dictating global health policy solely because he’s ridiculously rich was complete fucking bullshit.

Who could have known.

Literally the only people that have been writing in defense of not waiving the patent were people who received funding from the Gates Foundation or the pharmaceutical companies… Citations needed have a killer episode outlining the whole thing. Every other major health group and humans rights group has been fighting against in the whole time.

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How much of the $40 it costs to buy both Pfizer vaccines is their profit?

Why don’t the rich countries just pay the vaccine producers their profits in exchange for open sourcing it? seems trivial.

I mean Johnson and Johnson vaccine costs $10 or something, this is just silly, pay them their fucking $$ so that they still jump into action next time.

Current Affairs also recently wrote a takedown-ish piece on Gates. Not limited to just his vaccine stuff, but builds up to it and includes it towards the end.

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“The nets have helped save millions of lives, but scientists worry about the collateral damage: Africa’s fish.”

EDIT: The lede to Museveni’s wikipedia page is fabulous:

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Thats… not what happened. But relitigating this when we can’t agree on basic facts seems pointless.

I agree for us, but I can’t believe this isn’t the main subject being discussed in here because its like the next biggest thing for Global covid. Because its not just the waiver but all the other things that will need to happen to get these other manufacturers ready ASAP. And we’re talking millions of lives and the threat of much worse variants.

I’ll ignore your posts on it and you can ignore mine, but it should be discussed imo.

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Probably already been discussed or posted but as I’ve not been in here in months I’ll leave it here anyways. :grinning:

https://mobile.twitter.com/alanbeattie/status/1390307902515077123

And I’ve got my appointment for my Vacation next Friday, in the post today. :sweat_smile:

Where I’ll probably learn I’ve been Covid-19 positive, after all how the F can I have not caught it working in the wild basically all through the worst of it. :grin:

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His reach and the reach of the foundation is truly flabbergasting. A huge portion of the people writing articles against lifting the patents were straight up getting large funding from the foundation. It’s insanity.

Even if his intentions are good, this billionaire god complex shit is horrible and has had horrible affects.Just donate to the top experts and stop pushing your agenda dude.

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UK stops short of backing waiver on vaccine patents

The UK and the European Union have stopped short of backing calls from the United States for international rules that protect the patents on coronavirus vaccines to be waived.

They’ve pledged instead to work with the World Trade Organization to improve the availability of vaccines.

It comes after the US threw its support behind the move to temporarily lift the patent protection.

India and South Africa proposed the plan, which they said would increase vaccine production around the world. But drugs manufacturers argue it may not have the desired effect.

A UK government spokesperson said the UK was “working with WTO members to resolve this issue” and was “in discussions with the US and WTO members to facilitate increased production and supply of Covid-19 vaccines”.

They added: "As one of the biggest donors to Covax [World Health Organization vaccine initiative], we will ensure global access to vaccines and continue to encourage manufacturers to provide their vaccines on a not-for-profit, transparent basis.”

Meanwhile, pharmaceutical companies have voiced their opposition to a waiver, insisting that patents are not the primary obstacle, and cautioned that the move could stifle innovation.

Read more on the issues here.

If patents aren’t the major obstacle, why are the pharma companies insisting on keeping their patents? Transparently self-serving bullshit.

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I’m probably more pro-intellectual property rights than 90% of the people here but if Gates & Co. don’t start making some kind of concession people are gonna start calling for a nationalized pharma industry. These guys are setting their own house on fire.

You’re reaching way too far here.

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I think the argument is straightforward?

Pharma companies are presumably being pressured to waive patent rights, but only for COVID-related drugs. Either:
A) The pressure solely relates to addressing COVID, with no ulterior motives.
B) This is a sneaky way of encroaching on pharma’s patent rights more generally.

If A) and the patents aren’t the major obstacle, then there’s no benefit to it. And if B), then of course pharma companies would fight that. Probably there’s at least a little bit of B) sprinkled in the pressure, so why give that ground if it doesn’t actually address the issue at hand. (I’m taking for granted the assertion that patents aren’t the major obstacle.)

Maybe I misunderstood the point you were making.

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People are gonna start burning shit down if thousands of people die while the world’s richest man refuses to give up his patents. And if the patents aren’t the real obstacle, he shouldn’t even care.

I’m honestly severely confused as to what you’re talking about. I’m not an expert as to vaccine production, but I’ve yet to read something to suggest that patent stuff is holding back production at all. Gates position, in fact, was revolving around what he thought was best for the fastest, highest quality production of vaccine. Patent protections, afaict, have not held up production at all.

For example, when you’re talking about Gates, you’re talking about the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine. You asserted that Gates was some sort of evil genius trying to make money off this, but I’ve yet to see a financial interest actually demonstrated. On top of that, if patent protection really was some sort of issue, you’d expect they would slow third party production. In fact, India is already making 90 million doses of AZ per month. The stuff I’ve read about things slowing down vaccine production are basic supplies, not patents.

I can’t say that I have a solid grasp of every thing on this issue, but the stuff about gates is just not informed at a super basic level. Gates didn’t dictate world health policy. Gates isn’t profiting on the AZ stuff. Gates has a position about would allow for the fastest highest quality production of vaccine that at least seems reasonable.

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These things aren’t really related to one another though… at the moment. Currently everyone is willing to pay for covid vaccines and production is seemingly going as fast as possible. My understanding is that there are very few places that can produce mRNA vaccines. AZ is allowing lots of people to produce their vaccine, but last I read the hold up was raw materials for them. Basic stuff like vials even.

Down the line though, when the need for vaccine isn’t as acute, that’s when it will make much more of a difference. At least in my mildly educated opinion.

When you read about issues with IP and vaccine, specifically the stuff from MSF, it talks about the newer pneumococcal vaccine that has not made it’s way quickly into less developed areas because of stringent IP law. That’s the concern of what will happen in the future with covid vaccines.

I’m actually severely skeptical of any harm coming to pharma from this. Frankly they’ve done a fucking amazing job in the first place, add on their massive amount of power and influence I have a tough time seeing them taking some kind of significant hit.

I don’t know much about Gates and the AZ vaccine, but the fact that we’re even talking about him in this thread is a problem.

I’m all for the pharma companies making a great deal of money off of their vaccines, but these guys are coming very close to killing the golden goose if they want to keep maxxing value off of thousands of people dying. Sorry, but at some point the people are going to storm the Bastille and either force them to give up their IP or consider some kind of nationalized vaccine manufacturing.