A Little Jab Will Do Ya'
It seems that the rollout of vaccines and vaccinations across the country are running out of steam and that, my friends, is not a good thing. We can fantasize about herd immunity all we want but the fact remains, the country should try to come as close to possible in immunizing every man, woman and child. You don’t have to be of any political leanings to know that to have restrictions lifted, we need to see a certain level of vaccinations and we aren’t getting there. The potential implications are many and the one that sticks out to me is the rate at which our competitors are vaccinating their populations and how that could effect the United States economically in the years to come. A country that has reached that coveted herd immunity point will have a better chance to resume economic growth and capture market share as competitors fall behind. This is true for every country and in the race for recovery, you don’t want to be left behind. That goes for the economic toll as well as the social toll of this pandemic.
As we work through the vaccinations and relax some of the onerous restrictions, something the Biden administration has mentioned that has really got me thinking is this little ditty about waiving the patent protection that the pharmaceutical companies have concerning their vaccines. Does this make sense?
I don’t think so. These companies have done an incredible job researching, developing, manufacturing and distributing the vaccines that are now saving millions of lives. Sure, the motivation was a combination of altruism and capitalism but so what? A company should be allowed to make money on a product it has developed, manufactured and distributed.
The fact that Pfizer makes money on every shot given should not be held against it. Where do you think that money goes? Pfizer will either re-invest it in new medicines to save peoples lives or distribute it directly or indirectly to it’s shareholders. Thats how capitalism works.
Do I think that big Pharma has taken advantage of the train wreck of our healthcare system. Absolutely. However, I don’t think thats the case here. They contracted with the Trump Administration to manufacture the vaccine, after it was developed, at a certain price. That price was deemed fair and they did as required. The fact that they had the ability to manufacture this vaccine at a profit should not be held against them and it just seems to me that this is another example of left leaning politicians not believing in capitalism. Why then would you want to take away the patent protection that was give to this vaccine? They argue that it will allow other manufacturers to produce this vaccine in greater quantities and at a lower cost. Let’s take a look at that thought for a second.
If you take away the patent protection for this vaccine, these politicians believe that hundreds of generic manufacturers will create cheaper versions and get them out to the populations that need them most, the Third World. Ok, good in principle but not practical. This vaccine needs to be developed and stored until use in specific super cold storage facilities. The medicine without sub zero storage spoils in less than two weeks. Do you actually believe that the generic drug manufacturing industry has the capability to ramp up the creation, manufacturing and tricky distribution of this vaccine in a few weeks time? Let’s be real here. Even generic manufacturers have to have their vaccines tested and approved and this takes months. In those intervening months Pfizer, which is fully committed, can produces billions of vaccines. It can distribute them efficiently and correctly around the World. It also has unusually high quality control measures which affords recipients some level of security when receiving their doses.
I will point out that while I am talking specifically about the Pfizer vaccine, this encompasses all of the vaccines that have been approved so far.
Another point that hasn’t been talked about much is the fact that if you can arbitrarily take away the patent protection from one medicine, what’s to say you can’t do it for another? The pharmaceutical industry spends billions on research for various medicines because it can be extremely profitable when you hit on one. Saving lives is not cheap and while the risk/reward here is a moving target, it still, at the end of the day, is about profitability. Taking away a company’s ability to produce a profitable product reduces the motivation to create new products and thus stunts growth. You want to destroy capitalism, destroy motivation.
The question remains however, will this gain momentum on Capital Hill? I think it is something to be watched closely and could be a foretelling of the future should this advance to a point of implementation. I will apply a little common sense here and say that I don’t think it will. Big Pharma lobbyists are almost as powerful as the gun lobby in this country and they will fight this tooth and nail to make sure it dies somewhere along the way. For once, I believe the lobbyists to be right.