May 19, 2021 6:03 AM By Brandon Lee
Senate Republicans are calling on top Biden administration officials to walk back support of an international plan to waive Covid-19 vaccine IP protections, calling the decision a âgiveawayâ to China and India that will only promote âvaccine nationalism.â
Countries like China that regularly steal U.S. intellectual property began urging the World Trade Organization to waive IP rights âalmost immediately after these vaccines were proven to work,â Sens. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) wrote in a letter today to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.
âThese nations are falsely claiming that granting such a waiver would speed the development of new vaccine capacity. Nothing could be further from the truth,â they said in the letter, obtained by Bloomberg Law.