I was listening to the news this morning and my stomach sank when I heard the following headline: “US Government backs waiving intellectual property rules on vaccines; pharmaceutical companies oppose.”
After a year of living with the pandemic, seeing the current tragic scenes in India, and knowing developing nations have only vaccinated a tiny fraction of their populations, I couldn’t help but picture pharmaceutical executives scheming to retain their IP and control the production and distribution of vaccines.
I know there is an immense amount of complexity, nuance, and subtext to this debate—and I’m not going to pretend that I understand it—but this feels like a moment when these companies can, and should, put humanity before profits.
Here’s hoping this situation unfolds to give billions around the world better and faster access to much needed vaccines.