Well, another thing is that many of the patents that might be relevant could potentially apply to, eg, the creation of reagents that are much more widely useful. They would probably be fine with covid-specific stuff (there are, at this point, not covid-19 specific patents, as patenting usually takes a couple of years), but the main concern of companies is probably that they don’t want to loosen restrictions on much more generally applicable technologies.
A temporary waiver seems live a viable play, then. I mean, Gates has been trying to give away his billions for decades, nows his big chance to be a global hero and buy like a one-year licensing deal from the pharma companies.
Yes, if there’s one thing the people won’t stand for, it’s poor people dying from preventable disease in the Third World.
The whole IP thing seems like a cynical distraction ploy. Rich world governments need to take responsibility for vaccinating the world. Demanding that companies give up insanely valuable IP so that poor countries can figure it out themselves is ridiculous. As a libertarian, I really can’t believe that the only fucking area of policy where free-market ideas seem to have taken hold is how to respond to a deadly global pandemic. “acTUALLy, vaCCiNe ShoRTAgeS iN InDia ArE Due to mARKeT dISTortING ip rEGUlatIONs.”
Here’s a proposal. If India or some other country wants to make vaccine doses, the G8 or some similar group should pay a market royalty to the appropriate drug company. In the meantime, that same group should order 8 billion courses of vaccine and get it into the arms of everyone on earth as soon as we can. This is what governments are for. It’s laughable that their excuse for not getting it done is that private companies and epidemic-stricken poor countries haven’t done their jobs for them already.
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I agree with you but I don’t think this is a widely held view among the technocrats that actually run governments. Since the 90s the overriding heuristic about the role of government has been to reduce public sector direct action and work on crafting laws and regulations from ivory towers such that the world runs itself. The people in charge of governments now literally don’t know how to get things done. Even the liberal end of the technocrats think all the dirty world is someone else’s job.
“Government should fix the problem,” says our resident libertarian.
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I’m the worst kind of hypocrite: every issue that comes up, I just pick the position that has the best arguments in favor. Flagrant cheating!
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I guess it takes a global pandemic to make dorm-room libertarians realize how absurd and unworkable their ideas are.
Just addressing your top point, if you listen to the citations needed podcast, a super credible podcast from my understanding, and a TON of the main literature you’re reading if you’re just googling stuff is just people directly tied to big pharma and or the gates foundation. The reach of the gates foundation will blow your mind and how many people in the global health community receiving funding from them. It’s not a conspiracy, but if you know where your bread is buttered you aren’t going to go against your main guy.
They site dozens of examples of recent articles and their massive conflicts of interests.
Every other health organization without any ties to big pharma or gates is saying its a clear cut issue, do the trips waiver.
And like I said its not JUST patents, Biden can force these companies to share procedures and know how as well as copyrights. Tons of experts and global health communities are saying this would have a dramatic effect on how fast we can vaccinate the global poor.
And you’re right about Gates not profiting of those, of course he isn’t. It’s about IP law, his ideology, and his god complex. Covax, which is his pet project, which is basically rich countries donating to poor countries doses, would be useless if they could make t heir own.
One of my main points which you never addressed is what fucking expertise, or right, does Gates have to tell people what they should do with their patents? Besides being insanely rich with a god complex.
I know you really care about saving lives, so this is just a legitimize disagreement between us because we both do, but just look at are the two sides of the issue. All the human rights groups, public health groups not tied to the gates foundation or big pharma are on team waive the trips waiver and pushing Biden make them help set up manufacturing around the world.
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The what expertise does Gates have argument is so odd. He has run one of the biggest health focussed non-profits for decades and been deeply involved in global health policy for that same time.
Disagree all you want with him but to pretend he isn’t an expert on health policy is just silly.
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I suppose there is concern that being too forceful with these companies will lead them to being less inclined to participate the next time there is a global health catastrophe, so the right action may depend on what you think is the probability that we see another pandemic like this in our lifetimes.
Is the next step after some form of universal health care in the US a government takeover of pharmaceutical companies?
Should we nationalize Big Pharma?
- Yes
- No
- Maybe
- I don’t know
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new vaccine production issues will inevitably arise if you somehow magically let every other country to manufacture it tomorrow. supply chain shortage has already been mentioned, but a much larger problem might be poor quality ineffective or even harmful injections when many new manufacturers will flood the bottom of the market. same poor countries we are concerned with will not get the pfizer or moderna, but some shitty knockoff of mrna technology that doesn’t work, and it could not only delay controlling covid worldwide, but undermine confidence in the mRNA tech for subsequent uses.
the whole tech process is less than a year old. it’s not like making aspirin or insulin. the right thing for US/EU government to do is making sure that pfizer/moderna commit to scaling the production up until the whole world has enough doses, and distributing them globally from the onset, paying the companies to do it at some nominal profit, while continually monitoring the effectiveness.
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Pro-international-mega-monopoly-business take sadly the norm for “libertarians”.
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monopolies and cartels are natural occurrences, who are we to not let them freely form.
The joke is that you’ve spent a decade+ pushing libertarian derp about how the government isn’t ever the solution only to spin around and tell us that actually you’ve been in favor of big government this whole time while also trying to talk down to everyone. The mental gymnastics are impressive, but maybe be less of a dick to the people who weren’t completely wrong this whole time?
I like the nationalization discussion stuff, but maybe it deserves it’s own thread?
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“Property” is a legal thing. It’s government action that decides what is ownable and who can own it. Monopolies occur naturally in an environment where governments nurture and protect them.
that’s probably not the only times they occur, but yes, governments do have the power to establish and break up monopolies.
Joe Biden and the WTO (!) calling for patent waivers sure seems like a red warning flag to the industry (assuming that isn’t all smoke and mirrors). If pharma pushes the profit extraction envelope too far, people are going to start wondering why we don’t have some kind of nationalized vaccine capability the same way the military is trying to spin up national semiconductor foundries. At some point, surely the PR value alone makes it worthwhile to give in a little on the IP. To say nothing of the fact that their vaccines are gonna degrade in value the longer this virus is allowed to stew and mutate in India.
Easily solved w a pharmaceutical BOGO sale or BOGT sale.
Running an organization does not make you an expert in epidemiology, manufacturing, what other countries are capable of making, vaccine protocol.
He’s a fucking CEO of a charity foundation, that does not make him a health expert wtf.
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