Last week, Joe Biden made an announcement that not many people saw coming.
He came out in favor of waiving drug industry patents to allow developing countries to gain access to low-cost generic versions of the Covid-19 vaccine.
For weeks, The Intercept team has been reporting on the behind-the-scenes struggle to protect Big Pharma’s profits: calling out their massive lobbying campaign, exposing conflicts of interest among a raft of Biden insiders, and detailing the horrifying human cost of vaccine apartheid.
The U.S. had been one of the major holdouts not yet supporting vaccine patent waivers, but under enormous pressure and with Covid-19 exploding in India and South America, Biden said no to Big Pharma.
This is why hard-hitting investigative journalism matters — but the fight is not over.
Biden’s announcement does not guarantee that the vaccine patent waivers will be approved by the World Trade Organization. Drug companies like Pfizer are doubling down on their lobbying blitz, and they still have allies, especially in the European Union.
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The extremity of Covid-19 vaccine apartheid cannot be overstated. As of mid-February, the United States had acquired enough vaccines for three times its total population, while 130 countries had not yet administered a single shot. And as the United States and other wealthy countries begin to reopen and recover, the virus is exploding with horrifying death counts in India and Brazil.
As Bernie Sanders said, waiving drug industry patents for poorer countries is a matter of common human morality.
But if that isn’t enough to put people over drug industry profits, then self-interest requires it as well.
Let’s be clear: There is no way the Covid-19 pandemic can be stopped while it’s allowed to rampage through the poorest countries in the world. Even if 100 percent of the population in wealthier countries are vaccinated, the virus will continue to spread and mutate and come right back.
That’s why the lobbying of the drug industry is one of the most grotesque examples of corporate greed we’ve ever seen, and we will continue to expose their corruption at every step.
