In response to the Biden administration’s brokering of a deal wherein pharmaceutical giant Merck will utilize excess manufacturing capacity to produce the coronavirus vaccine of its longtime competitor, Johnson & Johnson, public health advocates said Tuesday that the partnership—though welcome—reveals how global vaccine supplies could be significantly increased if patent monopolies were dissolved and the technology controlled by Big Pharma shared worldwide. …
By Margarida Jorge and Niko Lusiani
In his first weeks on the job, President Joe Biden has put forward numerous executive orders that show his administration’s commitment to returning the U.S. to a leadership role in the global response to COVID-19. This new approach reflects a clear lesson from the Trump administration’s failed example: We cannot succeed by going it alone.
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U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced legislation to publicly manufacture personal protective equipment, prescription drugs, and other medical supplies necessary to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Pandemic Emergency Manufacturing Act of 2021 authorizes the federal government to manufacture medical products,
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Common Dreams – 9/8/20
“It is simply remarkable and beyond dangerous that President Trump has so politicized the vaccine process to the point that drug corporations—the least trusted industry in America—are now the messengers on vaccine safety,” said the public health advocacy group Lower Drug Prices Now. “It is the job of elected officials and government regulators, not corporations, to police safety for consumers. Yet, Donald Trump continues to prioritize his own narrow political goals over the needs of the American people, undermining public health and ignoring his responsibility as president.”
NPR – 9/4/20
“The insiders are making plenty of profit and they’re mostly doing it with our money,” said Margarida Jorge, a campaign director with the group Lower Drug Prices Now. “I’m absolutely for deploying public money in the interests of public health and the public good. But we don’t have any commitment from the administration that any of this investment is ultimately going to benefit real people.”
Washington Post – 8/25/20
“The HHS Office of Inspector General, responding to a complaint by the advocacy groups Public Citizen and Lower Drug Prices Now, said in July that Slaoui would be in his post for longer than 130 days, which did not qualify him as a “special government employee,” a designation that would have required him to make financial disclosures and follow conflict-of-interest rules.”
Bloomberg – 8/6/20
Meanwhile, two consumer groups yesterday filed complaints with a federal government watchdog questioning the role of the White House’s Covid-19 vaccine czar. Public Citizen and Lower Drug Prices Now filed two complaints with the HHS Office of the Inspector General asking about Moncef Slaoui’s role guiding vaccine development and whether he may be subject to the same conflict of interest requirements as government employees. Slaoui was the head of GlaxoSmithKline’s vaccines department and maintains millions of dollars in company stock.
