2023-10-18 08:35:59
By Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize winner in Economics and University Professor at Columbia University.
With covid-19 we prioritize the profits of pharmaceutical companies over the people of developing countries.
The Covid-19 pandemic caught humanity off guard, although we had certainly received warnings of smaller-scale outbreaks—SARS, Ebola, MERS, and bird flu—for decades. US President Barak Obama, aware of the true nature of the threat that infectious diseases could pose, went so far as to create a Global Health Security and Biodefense unit within the National Security Council. But Donald Trump, in his infinite wisdom, shut it down.
Given the strong likelihood that sooner or later we will face another pandemic, the international community is rightly holding discussions about how to do things better next time. Last month, a United Nations High-Level Meeting on Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response produced a “political declaration” that was hailed as a milestone. The 14-page draft recognizes that, as Carolyn Reynolds, co-founder of the Pandemic Action Network, PPRP, said, “it is much more than a national health issue; It is an economic and national and global security issue. “Like climate change, pandemics are a global systemic risk and existential threat to humanity, and we need to treat them as such.”
Now, isn’t this a no-brainer? Although some have defined the agreement as “historic”, it was not accompanied by firm commitments from governments.
We already know what it will take to have better results next time. After Covid-19 spread globally, millions of people in poor countries died due to lack of access to medicines that were hoarded in rich countries. We had to resort to exemptions from intellectual property (IP) rights related to the pandemic pathogen – including vaccines, testing, personal protective equipment and therapeutics – as well as commitments from everyone to share their technology and provide all necessary funds to help to the poorest countries.
However, during the coronavirus crisis, we saw how even the most powerful defenders of international governance, such as the United States, showed few qualms about breaking rules and norms that they felt conflicted with their own. immediate interests.
On the other hand, thanks to a brave freedom of information request in South Africa and other confirmed leaks, we now know that Big Pharma stooped so low as to charge some developing countries more than they charged developed countries. Some also insisted that the bulk of their products be exported to Europe from the emerging markets where they were manufactured, even if those countries’ own citizens were desperate for medicines.
Worse still, while governments in developing countries had to meet strict contractual obligations, the companies themselves were exempted from even the minimum requirement to deliver on time the supplies they had promised. And they insisted on secrecy—for reasons that are clear today—even in cases where that meant violating a country’s transparency laws. Many governments in developing countries, consequently, were faced with the dilemma of having to choose between saving the lives of their citizens and preserving democratic values. As a compromise solution, at least one country chose to turn to Russia for vaccines. For others, China was the only possible supplier.
Any rational strategy must begin with the recognition that controlling a pandemic is in everyone’s best interest. Given the apparent inability of rich and powerful countries to meet their commitments during a crisis, the reasonable solution is to ensure the ability to produce pandemic products everywhere, and remove foreseeable impediments for countries that do so. That means agreeing on a strong IP exemption and setting tough penalties for any lab that improperly interferes with another company’s use of specified IP, including in cases where production is exported to third countries in the developing world.
To anticipate future threats, some of the relevant technology should be transferred today, and governments and companies must commit to facilitating any additional transfers that future pathogens may require. Governments should have the tools and legal authority to force or induce companies within their jurisdictions to share that technology, and developing countries should have the right to sue if that is not done. That said, global compliance mechanisms are weak, and during the Covid-19 pandemic we witnessed a violation of international rules and norms by countries in the global north – without any consequences. This is why it is so important to have drug production and development capabilities in the global south.
Nor can we trust advanced economies to provide emergency financing when the situation demands it. In the current negotiations, even getting them to make prior commitments has been extremely difficult. Once again, to anticipate future threats, we should mobilize the necessary funds now and establish clear rules for distributing them. Although some governments are unlikely to provide funds immediately – the world should expect nothing from Republicans in the US Congress – it remains possible to forge a binding agreement to distribute the money through multilateral channels such as the development banks and the International Monetary Fund.
There is a quid pro quo here. Since controlling any future pathogen will require data, we need all countries to commit to sharing it. But during the Covid-19 crisis, South Africa was, in effect, punished when it identified a new variant of the virus: other countries responded by imposing travel restrictions on the country, although it was not clear where the variant had originated, or if it was more prevalent elsewhere. This episode sets a potentially disastrous precedent for the next pandemic. Countries should have incentives to be open; Ensuring access to technologies and emergency financing is essential to this goal.
With coronavirus, we prioritize pharmaceutical company profits over the lives and well-being of people in developing countries. It was immoral, shameful and counterproductive. As long as a pathogen is allowed to run amok somewhere, there is a risk of dangerous new mutations that threaten everyone. And as the United States and its European allies waged a battle for hearts and minds in the developing world, they shot themselves in the foot and exposed the weaknesses of their own democracies. What the rest of the world sees are governments so tied to Big Pharma that they will put their interests ahead of their own safety.
We must prepare the ground for a more fair, inclusive and rational response next time. Faced with that urgent task, last month’s United Nations meetings fell far short of what is needed.
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