The problem is that greed is a human failing, found in all human beings, not
just Capitalist human beings.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Wednesday, February 3, 2021 6:06 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: COVID-19 Vaccine Developers Want to Keep Getting
Billions in Public Money With No Strings Attached
And there it is. The number one reason Capitalism will never work for the
Working Class. In a word, Greed
Carl Jarvis
On 2/3/21, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
COVID-19 Vaccine Developers Want to Keep Getting Billions in Public
Money With No Strings Attached By Julia Rock, Jacobin
02 February 21
Drug companies have received over $10 billion from the US government
for
COVID-19 vaccine production. Yet those companies weren't required to
offer their vaccines at fair prices or share intellectual property
rights - and they want to keep it that way.
When the US government awarded over $10 billion in contracts and
advance purchase commitments to drug companies working on COVID-19
vaccines and treatments, it did not require the recipients of
government money to agree to offer their products at fair prices or
share intellectual property rights to enable faster production.
Now, two of the companies awarded those contracts - Pfizer and Johnson
& Johnson - are trying to prevent shareholders from voting on
resolutions to require the companies to disclose information about the
impact of government funding on vaccine access.
The US government has purchased two hundred million doses of the
Pfizer vaccine and one hundred million doses of the Johnson & Johnson
vaccines, for about $20 and $10 per dose, respectively.
The shareholder resolutions, filed by members of the Interfaith Center
on Corporate Responsibility (ICCR), a shareholder activism
organization, ask those two companies to inform their shareholders how
"receipt of public financial support for development and manufacture
of products for COVID-19 is being, or will be, taken into account when
making decisions that affect access to such products, such as setting prices."
Similar resolutions were also filed at Eli Lilly, Gilead, Merck, and
Regeneron.
Both Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson filed "no action requests" with the
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in December, asking the
agency to rule that the companies can withhold the proposals from
shareholders.
Neither company responded to the Daily Poster requests for comment.
"Did You Take Government Funding Into Account?"
In nearly identical filings prepared by the same lawyer, both Pfizer
and Johnson & Johnson argued that the proposals attempt to
"micromanage" the companies "by requesting an intricately detailed report."
Meg Jones-Monteiro, ICCR's health equity director, called the
micromanaging claim "ludicrous."
The claim that investors are trying to "micromanage" the companies
comes from an SEC precedent finding that certain "ordinary business
operations"
should not be subject to shareholder oversight. But Jones-Monteiro
argues that the issue of vaccine pricing during pandemics doesn't fall
into this category.
"Anything related to drug pricing has been established as a social
policy issue," Jones-Monteiro told the Daily Poster, meaning it isn't
just ordinary business that doesn't need any shareholder oversight.
She noted that the proposals don't ask about ordinary pricing
decisions or ask for intricate details about pricing algorithms. "We
are asking very
generally: Did you take government funding into account? And how did
you take it into account?"
Oxfam, an ICCR member who filed the proposed resolution with Johnson &
Johnson, wrote in a supporting statement that "JNJ stated publicly
that it will distribute a COVID-19 vaccine on a 'nonprofit' basis,"
adding: "JNJ has not clarified what 'nonprofit' means when the
government funds a significant portion of the research and development
cost."
"We're suspecting the vaccine's price is higher than the cost of
production," Nicholas Lusiani, a senior advisor at Oxfam who works
with the pharmaceutical industry in the United States, told the Daily
Poster. "We would like to see a drop-down to the actual cost of production."
Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen received $456 million for vaccine
development last March, and then an additional $1 billion in August in
exchange for providing one hundred million doses to the federal government.
The company expects to have the US doses ready by April.
Pfizer received an advance purchase commitment from the federal
government in July of about $2 billion for one hundred million doses,
and signed an agreement to provide an additional one hundred million
doses for the same amount in December.
Trinity Health, which filed the Pfizer resolution on behalf of the
ICCR, wrote in an accompanying letter: "Although advance purchase
commitments do not directly fund vaccine development, they reduce the
risk associated with it."
BioNTech, the company Pfizer worked with to develop its COVID-19
vaccine, also received funding from the German government.
Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer additionally argued in their no-action
request that they have already "substantially implemented" the
shareholder proposals by posting information on their websites about
vaccine pricing.
That information isn't sufficient, says Jones-Monteiro. "What they're
missing is the answer to the question we've asked, which is, how do
you take government funding into account?" she said.
Intellectual Property Rights
While the government funded research and development of COVID-19
vaccines and minimized risks with advance purchase commitments, the
vaccines also contain wholly publicly developed technologies, raising
questions about intellectual property rights.
In November, Public Citizen issued a report finding that the Pfizer
and Johnson & Johnson vaccines were developed using a spike protein
technology that had been discovered by scientists at the National
Institutes of Health.
"Years of public investment have fueled the rapid advancement of
COVID-19 vaccine candidates," the watchdog group wrote.
"Already, Janssen's agreements with [US health officials] have been
criticized for limiting the government's intellectual property rights,"
Oxfam wrote in its Johnson & Johnson letter, which it said "could
place a chokehold on mass production commensurate with global need -
increasing price, decreasing overall supply and preventing universal access."
Wealthy countries comprising 16 percent of the global population
currently have over 60 percent of the world's vaccine doses. Sharing
or suspending intellectual property rights would allow increased
production of the vaccine and make it easier for poorer countries to
vaccinate their populations.
Under the current arrangement, countries whose populations
participated in vaccine trials are facing vastly inadequate vaccine
supplies. And the world's richest countries have been blocking a
proposal at the World Trade Organization by India and South Africa to
waive vaccine patents in order to allow more widespread production of the
vaccine.
"You need enough doses to create global herd immunity, and right now,
we don't have enough doses, and they are controlled by rich countries,
which creates this situation of vaccine imperialism," Lusiani, the
Oxfam adviser, said.
Lusiani said the vaccine pricing issues pose potential risks to investors.
"You can imagine the reputational risk of Johnson & Johnson receiving
over a billion dollars in public money, and then raising the price
once the pandemic is over to astronomical levels," he said, arguing it
could lead investors to pull out of the company.
Then, there are larger risks to the economy created by limited vaccine
access. "Investors want everybody to get the vaccine so that the
economy can rebound as people go back to work," he said. The White
House Council of Economic Advisers estimates that accelerating
vaccination is worth $10 billion to the economy every day.
Jones-Monteiro expects the SEC to make a decision on the no-action
requests this month.
