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Vaccines

End Vaccine Apartheid

March 25, 2021 the Boycott Times Editorial Board. , , ,
The latest in a series of proposals brought by India and South Africa to the World Trade Organization (WTO), backed by over 100 countries, to temporarily suspend COVID-19 vaccine patents was blocked by western powers, namely the United States, United Kingdom, and the European Union. The patents that give monopoly rights over the manufacture and sale of drugs like the COVID-19 vaccines are protected globally by The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), signed in 1994 by the WTO.

Progressives Pressure Biden Over COVID19 Vaccine Patent Waiver

March 24, 2021 Peter Sullivan, The Hill. , , ,
Progressives are increasing pressure on President Biden to support a waiver for COVID-19 vaccine patent protections at the World Trade Organization (WTO), arguing the move is crucial for helping lower-income countries fight the coronavirus. The push features leading Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups calling on Biden to take action, but the White House has not made clear its position. “The Biden administration has an obligation to reverse the damage done by the Trump administration and reestablish our nation’s global reputation as a public health leader,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), head of the powerful House Appropriations Committee.

Vaccine Diplomacy Is Paying Off For China

March 17, 2021 Yanzhong Huang, Foreign Affairs. , , ,
Vaccines have had a place in diplomacy since the Cold War era. The country that can manufacture and distribute lifesaving injections to others less fortunate sees a return on its investment in the form of soft power: prestige, goodwill, perhaps a degree of indebtedness, even awe. Today the country moving fastest toward consolidating these gains may be China, under President Xi Jinping, who proclaimed last May that Chinese-made vaccines against COVID-19 would become a “global public good.” Since that time, top officials have promised many developing countries priority access to Chinese vaccines, and the Chinese Foreign Ministry has announced that the country is providing free vaccines to 69 countries and commercially exporting them to 28 more.

US Department Of Health Pressured Brazil Into Rejecting Sputnik V

March 16, 2021 Tim Korso, Sputnik News. , , ,
The developers of the Russian vaccine against the coronavirus have condemned the actions of the American authorities and stressed that nations should be fighting as a united front against the pandemic. The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has admitted in its annual report that it used "diplomatic relations" in order to force Brazil, one of the worst-hit countries in terms of the pandemic, to reject authorisation of the Russian coronavirus vaccine Sputnik V. The American authorities put their actions down to the need to "mitigate efforts" by Russia to boost its "influence" in the region, which, as the department's paper argues, would be detrimental to the "US’ safety and security". The report did not elaborate on how Brazil's approval of an additional vaccine to fight the pandemic would undermine US security.

US Chamber Of Commerce Presses WTO Not To Grant Vaccine Waivers

March 13, 2021 Andrew Karpan, Law 360. , , ,
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday warned the World Trade Organization's new director-general not to "distract" herself with proposals to suspend global intellectual property rules in order to distribute COVID-19 vaccines around the world. Patrick Kilbride, senior vice president of the Global Innovation Policy Center at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, told the WTO to recognize how important "transparent and predictable intellectual property rights" have been in spurring collaborative efforts to develop vaccines. Kilbride's comments came just a day after the trade body's new director-general, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, issued her first address to the WTO's General Council.

Progressives Push Biden To End ‘Vaccine Apartheid’

March 2, 2021 Celia Wexler, Blue Tent. , , ,
Last Friday, three days before a crucial meeting of the World Trade Organization, progressives in the trade, faith, labor, consumer, and human rights communities sent an urgent request to the Biden administration. These nonprofits and unions are urging the administration to act quickly to assert its leadership on a pressing trade issue—whether trade rules will be allowed to hamper global efforts to combat the pandemic. In a letter and a press event, a coalition of 400 organizations asked President Joe Biden to make good on his promise to “absolutely positively” ensure access to vaccines in the developing world. They asked him to support a temporary waiver on requirements that give drug companies lengthy monopoly protections, as well as the right to decide where the vaccines will be made and who will receive them.

Dr. Osterholm’s Warning: COVID Hurricane On The Horizon

February 27, 2021 Vincent Emanuele, Counterpunch. , , ,
Twelve months ago, Dr. Michael Osterholm was interviewed on the Joe Rogan Program. At the time, he warned that anywhere from 400,000 to 1.5 million Americans would die of COVID and that the pandemic would last for many years and significantly impact our lives. So far, his predictions have been eerily accurate. Today, Dr. Osterholm is warning that a “Category 5 COVID-hurricane” is on the horizon, with the B117/UK Variant posing the greatest threat. As positive cases and deaths decline, he warns that the media has been negligent in their overly positive reporting. Indeed, the scientific community is engaged in an important debate. On one side, we have scientists who believe enough Americans have been infected and, as a result, have developed enough immunity to avoid a serious surge.

Vaccine Imperialism: China vs. The Western World

February 24, 2021 Lee Siu Hin, Action LA. , , ,
China and Russia are among the first countries in the world to vaccinate people, according to the website Our World in Data. By December 15, 2020, at least 1.5 million Chinese had taken a jab, compared to the U.S. and U.K. who also began their vaccination campaigns in early December and by December 15 had vaccinated around half a million people. So far China is leading the world in number of people who are fully vaccinated or have at least received the first jab. According to the Chinese media, as of January 23, 2021, nearly 16 million had taken a jab, closely followed by the number of people vaccinated in the U.S; as of February 9, China had administered 40.52 million doses and the U.S. had given 43.2 million.

What The Vaccine Debacle Tells Us About Predatory Capitalism

February 22, 2021 Ognian Kassabov, Al Jazeera. , , ,
Vaccines have been a beacon of hope amid a raging coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than 2.4 million people and brought world economies to a halt. They have been presented as a remedy that would put an end to the immense suffering – physical, emotional, and economic – caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. But as vaccine roll-out has faltered due to various foreseen and unforeseen circumstances, the light of this imaginary beacon seems to be getting dimmer. As a recent article published in the leading medical journal The Lancet concludes, “new vaccines will mean little to individuals around the world if they are unable to get vaccinated in a timely manner”. Months after several vaccines were approved for use, vaccination campaigns have been disappointingly slow, and if deployment continues at the present rate, only a few of the world’s richest countries are expected to achieve herd immunity before the end of the summer.

Global Solidarity Is Needed During The Pandemic To End Medical Apartheid

February 21, 2021 Margaret Flowers, PopularResistance.org. , , ,
Some of the truths the COVID-19 pandemic is exposing about the United States are its racial disparities in health and access to health care. Black and Indigenous people are more likely to be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 than white people. They are two to three times more likely to be hospitalized and two to two and a half times more likely to die than white people. There are a number of factors that contribute to this. Another related truth that is being exposed by the pandemic is the relative failure of capitalist countries to contain the virus and limit deaths when compared to socialist countries. Even some relatively poor countries, many of which are targeted by the US' illegal economic warfare, are outperforming wealthy countries because they have socialized systems.

The Global South Faces A ‘Vaccine Apartheid’

February 20, 2021 Hadas Thier, In These Times. , , ,
The coronavirus crisis in South Africa is far from over despite falling case numbers in recent weeks. The virus has claimed more than of 50,000 lives, and many health experts predict a devastating third wave. Complicating matters is a new coronavirus mutation known as n501, which threatens to upend South Africa’s vaccination plans. Unprecedented scientific collaboration has expedited the development of the new vaccine candidates, but patents protecting the bottom lines of the pharmaceutical companies have hampered efforts to manufacture vaccines at scale. Meanwhile, the United States and Western Europe have hoarded limited supplies through bilateral negotiations with Big Pharma. Developing nations in the Global South have been left behind.

Latin America Finds Its Own Answers To Produce COVID-19 Vaccines

February 19, 2021 Rubén Sierra, Council On Hemispheric Affairs. , , ,
In a world harmed by the severe COVID-19 pandemic, the access to vaccines is being distorted by the rules of the open market and the deep gap between rich and poor nations. As the director of the World Health Organization (WHO), doctor Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, recently said, “the world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure – and the price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries.” In a formal declaration the WHO warns that “in the majority of low and middle-income countries, vaccination has not even started which is a catastrophe as hospitals fill up.”[1] The People’s Vaccine Alliance (a coalition of organizations such as Oxfam, UNAIDS and Global Justice Now) accused the three biggest COVID-19 vaccine producers, Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna and AstraZeneca, of strangling the global supply of vaccines because of their intellectual-property protections.

Unprotected African Health Workers Die As Rich Countries Buy Up COVID-19 Vaccines

February 19, 2021 Kai Kupferschmidt, Science Magazine. , , ,
On 6 January, gastroenterologist Leolin Katsidzira received a troubling message from his colleague James Gita Hakim, a heart specialist and noted HIV/AIDS researcher. Hakim, chair of the department of medicine at the University of Zimbabwe, had fallen sick and had tested positive for COVID-19. He was admitted to a hospital in Harare 10 days later and moved to an intensive care unit (ICU) after his condition deteriorated. He died on 26 January. It is a crushing loss to Zimbabwean medicine, Katsidzira says. “Don’t forget: We have had a huge brain drain. So people like James are people who keep the system going,” he adds. Scientists around the world mourned Hakim as well. He was “a unique research leader, a brilliant clinical scientist and mentor, humble, welcoming and empowering,” wrote Melanie Abas, a collaborator at King’s College London.

Scheer Intelligence: The Clearest Example Of Israeli Apartheid Yet

February 19, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. , , ,
As Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination program got underway in recent months, reports in Western media, including the New York Times, lauded the country’s speedy inoculation efforts to vaccinate every Israeli over the age of 16. What many news reports failed to immediately note in detail, however, was that as the Middle Eastern nation was rapidly vaccinating its citizens against the deadly virus that turned the whole world upside down, it showed no signs of inoculating the approximately 5 million Palestinians whose land Israel occupies in the Gaza strip and the West Bank. After a global outcry ensued over the immorality of this decision, Israel ultimately promised to transfer 5,000 doses to the West Bank for medical staff. 

The Never Ending COVID Crisis

February 4, 2021 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. , , ,
It was in early 2020 that the word COVID-19 entered the lexicon. In the past year more than 440,000 people in the United States have died from this disease. The impact of shutdowns meant to end the spread of disease have cost millions of people their jobs, and businesses large and small no longer exist at all. COVID-19 has proven that the political system is devoted to the interests of the billionaire class and is therefore incapable of acting in the interests of the people. The vaccines which hold some promise are distributed by the same for-profit entities that run what passes for a health care system in this country. They are distributed by criteria that each state has developed, resulting in a patchwork of 50 different rules.
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