Rolling Stone Menu Biden Reverses on Vaccine Patent Restrictions in Move that Could Help India with Covid Pandemic
Biden follows through on campaign commitment: “This is the only humane thing in the world to do”
By Dipayan Bose/NurPhoto/AP
In a dramatic, and likely life-saving, reversal, the Biden administration has announced that it favors breaking patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines to speed their deployment in combating the global pandemic.
The announcement came from the office of the United States Trade Representative, Katherine Tai who vowed to make the case for waiving the intellectual property rights before of the World Trade Organization. “This is a global health crisis, and the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for extraordinary measures,” Tai wrote. While emphasizing that the Biden administration “believes strongly in intellectual property protections” as a general principle, it now backs waiving vaccine IP �
US supports waiving vaccine patents: what does it mean and how will it affect the pandemic?
The White House has confirmed that it will support easing patent restrictions on covid-19 vaccinations in an attempt to boost global immunity levels.
SAUL LOEB
AFP
The Biden administration has confirmed that it will support an
easing of global patent rules on pharmaceuticals to help ensure that people in developing countries are given access to life-saving coronavirus vaccines.
The news was announced on Wednesday after weeks of debate on the logistics and the morality of opening up the potential availability of
privately-developed vaccinations. The move has already faced strong pushback from drug manufacturers and this announcement is
Wed, May 5th 2021 7:23pm
Mike Masnick
Earlier this week we wrote about the absolutely ridiculous coalition of folks who were lobbying against the US supporting a TRIPS intellectual property waiver to support fighting COVID. As we noted, it was totally expected that Big Pharma would object to it, but the surprising thing was seeing Hollywood and the legacy entertainment industry an industry that
needs COVID to go away to get back to normal coming out
strongly against the waiver as well. They claimed they had to do so since the waiver would apply to copyright as well, but that s nonsense. The waiver (1) explicitly excluded entertainment products and (2) is expressly limited to prevention, containment or treatment of COVID-19.
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
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About Lambert Strether
Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.