Intellectual Property Rights vs Human Rights: The Issue of the COVID-19 Vaccine Patent

The recent issuing of travel restrictions from India by the Biden administration coupled with the arrival of aid to a country hard hit by pandemic has eclipsed optimistic news of vaccine roll out in developed countries.

The rise in Indian COVID cases created considerable criticism towards the United States’ on the active role it has played in exacerbating the crisis, as the bandage of sending over oxygen cylinders and oxygen concentrators–although extremely necessary–does not remedy the United States direct opposition against a patent waiver proposal for the COVID-19 vaccine. The implications of developed countries protecting the economic status quo despite a global health emergency can be seen in the loss of human lives and a potential slowdown in achieving global herd immunity. Experts have estimated that approximately seventy to ninety percent of the global population needs to gain resistance to the coronavirus for herd immunity to be achieved–a goal these developed countries are actively hampering.

But why is the United States so intent on protecting intellectual property rights?

Despite vast public funding, pharmaceutical companies such as Pfizer and Moderna that developed the vaccine have received exclusive patents as per domestic law. The positive media coverage for the drug companies, most of whom often appear in news headlines in a negative light, has proved to be a great public relations campaign for the drug giants. However, the refusal to suspend patents in order to facilitate vaccine technology transfer to developing countries–some of which possess adequate medical facilities and equipment to produce vaccines–has once again negatively shifted public perception.

Pharmaceutical companies’ argument for the economic benefits of intellectual property laws–such as that it spurs R&D required for novel drug development–has had severe human costs during the current pandemic. The profit maximizing intentions of the drug giants amidst a global health emergency has directly contributed to the current crisis in India, a practice being upheld by the government of developed countries. Pfizer and other companies have directly urged the US government to pursue legal action against any country that suspends drug patents to make coronavirus vaccines without the industry’s express approval. The US government did exactly this when a landmark proposal, which called for a temporary waiver of intellectual property and patent rights on Covid vaccines and treatments, was submitted to the World Trade Organization last October. Developed countries, including the United States and Canada, have continued to reject the proposal

Although the proposal has been on the table for multiple months, public backlash on the refusal to waive intellectual property rights has recently increased due to its direct impact on the Indian COVID crisis. However, not all members of the public have been supportive of this proposal. Bill Gates–an advocate for mass vaccination–expressed his support for patent rights in an interview with Britain’s Sky News.

“The thing that’s holding things back, in this case, is not intellectual property,” Gates said. “It’s not like there’s some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines. You’ve got to do the trial on these things. And every manufacturing process needs to be looked at in a very careful way.”

“There’s only so many vaccine factories in the world, and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines,” he added. “Moving a vaccine, say, from a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India, it’s novel, it’s only because of our grants and expertise that can happen at all.”

Gates’ patronizing attitude comes at odds with his philanthropic optimist media portrayal. His misunderstanding of what waiving the vaccine patents would accomplish reflects the large gap in worldwide vaccinations. In the United States, over half the adult population have been vaccinated, whereas developing countries like Thailand have seen only one percent of their population vaccinated amidst another coronavirus wave.

His comments also prompted contempt from the internet.

Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at Georgetown University’s Center for Global Health Science and Security, tweeted that “Jonas Salk once famously asked if you could patent the sun re: IP rights for the polio vaccine. That's a far cry from Bill Gates' unilateral decision to place patent protection above global health in terms of priorities.”

Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz published an Op-Ed on the Washington Post and argued that “preserving intellectual property barriers to COVID-19 vaccines is morally wrong and foolish.”

A debate on the benefits of intellectual property rights for drugs should not occur during a global health crisis. The restriction and refusal to provide developing countries with vaccines will only lengthen the pandemic, potentially causing further outbreaks of variants not protected by the current vaccine. The debate at the World Trade Organization should not concern the profit maximizing goals of powerful pharmaceutical companies or the political aims of developed countries. Instead, the human costs and the future of the pandemic should be at the forefront of considerations.