We the people paid a lot of the up-front development costs for the vaccines, but the drug companies own them and get all the profits, and we can’t even all get vaccinated. This in the wake of the horrifying number of deaths in the United States — 500,000.
As we go to print, President Biden has said the United States will have enough COVID-19 vaccine for 300 million people by the end of May. We hope this is the case as some of the vaccine producers have said in the recent past that they are not going to meet their production targets. Supply is still limited.
Meanwhile, as of December, the U.S. government has obligated nearly $14 billion in public money for vaccine development and manufacturing. The contracts that the U.S. and other governments around the world signed with the vaccine makers are secret, but some details have leaked out. The New York Times reported that “drug companies demanded and received flexible [vaccine] delivery schedules, patent protection and immunity from liability if anything goes wrong. In some instances, countries are prohibited from donating or reselling doses, a ban that could hamper efforts to get vaccines to poor countries.”
Shouldn’t the COVID-19 vaccine — and all vaccines — be publicly owned?
—The Editors
