Intellectual property waiver for COVID vaccines should be expanded to include treatments and tests; The Conversation, November 21, 2022

 Deborah Gleeson, Associate Professor in Public Health, La Trobe University, Dianne Nicol

Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Tasmania, James Scheibner
Lecturer in Law, Flinders University, The Conversation;

 Intellectual property waiver for COVID vaccines should be expanded to include treatments and tests

"Low and middle-income countries have been impacted disproportionately by the pandemic so far, suffering 85% of the estimated 14.9 million excess deaths in 2020 and 2021. 

Globally, progress in reducing extreme poverty was set back three to four years during 2020–21. But low-income countries lost eight to nine years of progress.

Expanding the WTO decision on COVID vaccines to include treatments and tests could be vital to reduce the health burden on poorer countries from COVID and enable them to recover from the pandemic. The Australian government should get behind this initiative and encourage other countries to do the same."

Joni Mitchell joins Neil Young, ditches Spotify: 'Irresponsible people are spreading lies; Fox Business, January 29, 2022

Melissa Roberto , Fox Business; Joni Mitchell joins Neil Young, ditches Spotify: 'Irresponsible people are spreading lies

"Joni Mitchell is joining Neil Young in his protest against Spotify, declaring on Friday that she is seeking to remove all of her music from the streaming service.

Young this week railed against Spotify for airing Joe Rogan's podcast. He claimed Rogan is spreading misinformation about the coronavirus...

"Irresponsible people are spreading lies that are costing people their lives," Mitchell said Friday in a message posted on her website. "I stand in solidarity with Neil Young and the global scientific and medical communities on this issue.""

When it comes to vaccines, is it time to abandon the carrot for the stick?; Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), January 11, 2022

Susan Davis and Kerri Miller, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR); When it comes to vaccines, is it time to abandon the carrot for the stick?

"Incentives like gift cards aren’t working to get people vaccinated. Rates have stalled or dropped, and public health officials all over the country are nervous.

As omicron spreads, infection rates soar and hospitals are once again overwhelmed, do we need to rethink how we motivate people to get vaccinated? Would denying access to the public sphere increase the number of people getting their shots?

Guest host Kerri Miller speaks with two public health researchers on motivating the masses to get vaccinated for the common good."

Texas scientists’ new Covid-19 vaccine is cheaper, easier to make and patent-free; The Guardian, January 15, 2022

Erum Salam , The Guardian; Texas scientists’ new Covid-19 vaccine is cheaper, easier to make and patent-free

"Although more than 60 other vaccines are in development using the same technology, Bottazzi said their vaccine is unique because they do not intend to patent it, allowing anyone with the capacity to reproduce it...

“Pretty much anybody that can make hepatitis B vaccines or has the capacity to produce microbial-based protein like bacteria or yeast, can replicate what we do,” Bottazzi said.

Patent wars over mRNA vaccines have recently heated up. Moderna and the National Institutes of Health are in a dispute over who should get credit for specific discoveries that led to a Covid-19 vaccine which has been delivered to more than 73 million Americans. If Moderna is found to have infringed on the federal government’s patent, it could be forced to pay more than $1bn.

At the same time, activists have called for Pfizer and Moderna to share the technology and knowhow for producing their vaccines, including taking the fight to the World Trade Organization."

Frustrated by vaccine inequity, a South African lab rushes to replicate Moderna’s shot; The Washington Post, November 28, 2021

Lesley Wroughton, The Washington Post ; Frustrated by vaccine inequity, a South African lab rushes to replicate Moderna’s shot

"At the World Trade Organization (WTO), trade ministers had been scheduled to begin meetings Tuesday over a contentious proposal by South Africa and India to temporarily waive intellectual property rights on coronavirus vaccines and therapies or find a way to allow developing countries to access the technologies. The meeting has been postponed because of the omicron variant. No new date has been set...

African countries have historically depended on Western donors and United Nations-backed programs such as the vaccine alliance known as Gavi, a partnership of donors and pharmaceutical companies that buys vaccines at lower prices and makes them available to countries that need them. Covax, a vaccine marketplace that was meant to secure coronavirus inoculations for developing countries, has struggled to access enough supplies during the pandemic...

Moderna has said it will not prosecute those found to be infringing on its covid-related patents during the pandemic, which amounts to an informal waiver, said Marie-Paule Kieny, a French virologist who chairs the U.N.-backed Medicine Patent Pool, which is part of the WHO’s efforts in Africa.

The concern with a waiver, Kieny said, is what happens once the pandemic ends. Any broader waiver agreed on at the WTO talks would likely have a time limit, she said, without a commitment from the drugmakers to enter into licensing agreements.

She said companies should negotiate now with drugmakers such as Moderna to reach formal licensing agreements before the pandemic is over."

4 questions to help sort through the ethics of getting a COVID vaccine before you’re eligible; MPR News, March 19, 2021

 

Catharine Richert, MPR News; 4 questions to help sort through the ethics of getting a COVID vaccine before you’re eligible

"‘Participation in the common good’

In general, University of Minnesota bioethicist Joel Wu says, the answer straightforward: If you aren’t eligible to get a vaccine according to those state rules, you should wait your turn. 

That’s especially true as vaccine demand continues to outpace supply. The state’s phased eligibility approach was designed to prioritize vaccination for people at the highest risk of getting severe cases of COVID-19. 

Because of that, Wu said, a person’s decision to jump the line to get a vaccine for which they’re not yet eligible comes down to pitting individual desires against our obligations to society at large. 

“There really needs to be a reawakening in the idea of participation in the common good, where each of us have to play our part to be healthy and safe together,” he said.""

Is it ever okay to jump to the front of the vaccine line? An ethics expert weighs in; Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), March 23, 2021

Stacy Weiner, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC); Is it ever okay to jump to the front of the vaccine line? An ethics expert weighs in

When a good is scarce, people sometimes behave badly to get it. Renowned bioethicist Arthur Caplan, PhD, offers advice on how to make the COVID-19 vaccine rollout more equitable, ethical, and trustworthy.

"What went wrong with applying ethical principles to vaccine distribution?

First, it became hard to roll out the vaccines to the priority groups, particularly the elderly. It turns out it’s not a great idea to ask them to make appointments on the internet [since they often lack access]. Also, some of them were homebound, so they couldn't get to vaccination sites.

As for health care workers, that term was never clearly defined. I think people had in mind front-line workers, but some hospitals and health systems were vaccinating everybody, including people who did psychotherapy remotely, even bioethicists and the board of trustees. So it looked to the public as though the rich were getting advantages. It looked like minority people weren't getting anything much — and they often weren’t.

If people think you're prejudiced, the sense of fairness falls apart, and then fewer people are willing to follow the rules. 

In addition, once you opened Moderna and Pfizer [vials of] vaccines, you had to finish them. [Moderna has 10 doses per vial, and Pfizer has five or six.] But nobody issued any guidance about how to redistribute vaccines that are about to go bad. That destroyed trust because people said, “Well, you're just giving it to anybody who's nearby or somebody who waits in line for six hours.” All of that made better sense than throwing it away — but none of that was following any agreed-upon rules.

The rollout has been unfair, inefficient, and frustrating. It’s made the public angry, and it’s made them not trust in government.""