Bill Gates says no to sharing vaccine formulas with global poor
salon.com
salon.com
He is talking about the safety of the vaccine, the limited production facilities to develop, and the ongoing public relational safety of the vaccine.
If at the moment, the vaccine were released and an enterprising group decided to open a new manufacturing complex and attempt to develop it — there is a HIGH chance of failure, and that comes at the risk of public safety, and the publics trust in vaccines.
This is a new vaccine, and there aren't enough experts in the field to safely produce it because they are all working at the big firms at the moment, because this didn't exist before last year at the scale that it is.
They should unequivocally release the patents for the greatness of humankind, but at the moment that is risky, worrisome, and could devalue the entire relationship with the public about the safety of vaccines, especially this type of vaccine. They should commit to releasing within a suitable, short term, time frame.
What if the situation were reversed? What if another country like China developed the vaccine first while people in the west died because we didn't have access to the vital information we needed to make it ourselves and Chinese companies wouldn't share it for those same reasons? Would you still agree?
Yes, we should. The entire patent system needs to be removed and replaced.
The issue comes down to widescale manufacturing, and ensuring that they can be made safely and in controlled environments. This vaccine should 100% be made public, from the carrier methods, to the specific genome (something that has already been released).
But here is where I have a moral quandary, if a newcomer (money hungry, greedy) manufacturing group decided to start producing the vaccine, and due to poor management, poor material choices, Q/A issues, &c began running afoul and they decided to either distort the truth and continue to outright sell the vaccine, or to offload to other places with lesser safeguards especially in smaller or 'third-world countries'— a term I despise. Then that would both harm the overall image of the vaccine, would harm the general trust, and would potentially set back entire populations by decades.
With the patent comes responsibility, and the ability to safeguard what your research can be ascribed to.
I agree that the research should be released, should be used, and eventually should become free for all (on the cusp or direct outset of this plague) ala Jonas Salk[1].
> What if another country like China developed the vaccine first
If a government is the main developers of a vaccine, then yes it should be free and open from the offset. But, if you remove the capabilities from business' to own their works you destroy nearly all initial incentives that they have to take risks on novel techniques or overall manufacturing. Is that the right mindset to have? Not at all. That's a horribly depressing mindset, but it's sadly the truth for almost all investor groups and boards around the world.
As said, this is a moral quandary. I wish for a fully scientific economy and culture, but to work within the confines of modern day greed this is sadly likely the only approach. I hope to be proven wrong, and I hope governments around the world step in and force corporations to give up their patents for the betterment of the world.
[1]. although he didn't patent for altruistic reasons as most believe, at the time he wouldn't have been eligible to patent due to the vaccine not being 'novel enough' as his lawyers put it.
* Setting up a mRNA vaccine factory is complicated, it needs time.
* Most money will be made in a short time.
You cannot simply start manufacturing vaccines at the drop of a hat in the middle of nowhere. If you could, everybody would do it.