Cuba’s int’l solidarity vs. US bosses’ drive for vaccine profits
https://themilitant.com/2021/04/10/cubas-intl-solidarity-vs-us-bosses-drive-for-vaccine-profits/
BY RÓGER CALERO
Vol. 85/No. 15
April 19, 2021
There are two different class approaches to the vaccination efforts
against COVID-19 confronting workers and farmers around the world today.
One ensures the profits of the ruling capitalist families, who own the
giant for-profit pharmaceutical and medical insurance monopolies.
The other, championed by the Cuban people and their socialist
revolution, concentrates social resources to develop vaccines for every
single person in Cuba and for every country in the world that wants it.
It’s essential that all workers and their families get vaccinated. In
order to rebuild the workforce in the U.S. and elsewhere in the
capitalist world — which has been decimated by layoffs, job combinations
and speedup, accelerated by the pandemic — workers need to band together
in our workplaces to fight in defense of our jobs, wages and safety.
But the cut-throat competition for market share by mammoth profit-driven
capitalist pharmaceutical companies, which have received billions of
dollars in government largesse for vaccine research, development and
distribution, is tearing this kind of world outlook to shreds.
This medicine-for-profit approach, alongside the capitalist rulers’
me-first, the rest-be-damned protectionism, will leave billions in
underdeveloped countries without the possibility of vaccination for
months to come, if at all. Prolonging the length of the pandemic will
further devastate the livelihood of millions, and raise the potential of
viral mutations that can sweep across the globe.
Under this pressure, the temptation for pharma bosses to fudge their
test results to get to market more quickly is huge.
On March 1, almost three months after the wealthiest capitalist
countries like the U.S. bought up the most promising vaccines and
started their inoculation campaigns, the governments of Ghana and Ivory
Coast had each received about 500,000 doses from Covax, a program run by
the World Health Organization. This is barely enough to begin
inoculating health care workers and the elderly.
Most of the 142 countries enrolled in Covax are in a similar situation.
The Guardian reported in January that Africa, with a population of 1.3
billion, will receive only 140 million doses by June, at best.
And the Covax program is unraveling as pharma giants prioritize deals
with the highest bidders.
As of mid-January, more than 7 billion vaccine doses had been purchased
globally, with 4.2 billion going to major capitalist countries, the
Guardianreports. Some of these governments have purchased enough doses
to cover their populations several times over. The Biden administration
is sitting on tens of millions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine,
waiting to be approved for use. In the meantime, it says it’s
considering “lending” Mexico some.
‘Vaccine protectionism’
Tensions are high even among competing imperialist powers. In early
March, the European Commission blocked exports of AstraZeneca vaccines
produced within the EU bloc to countries with “better vaccination
coverage.” It complained the manufacturer wasn’t meeting production
targets, affecting the vaccine rollout in member nations. EU
representatives have attacked AstraZeneca for using factories located in
Europe to make doses destined for the United Kingdom, demanding this be
stopped.
The German government is seeking to accumulate a mass of vaccines to
hoard. Meanwhile, the Indian government was scolded after announcing
March 26 that its Serum Institute, the world’s largest vaccine
manufacturer, would temporarily “adjust” down exports to give priority
to its own immunization campaign.
The truth is the scarcity of vaccines is created by the workings of
capitalism. Rather than mobilize all the resources of society, vaccine
creation and production is left to the “market” and its “profit motive.”
The winners hope to make trillions. Working people are the losers.
Cuba: ‘We share what we have’
Cuban people greeted with excitement and pride the progression of
late-stage trials of two of the five vaccines being developed there —
Soberana 2 and Abdala — which put Cuba well underway to becoming the
first Latin American country to make its own vaccine.
After positive initial test results, a much larger Soberana inoculation
study was launched in late March. It will vaccinate 1.7 million people —
most of the adult population of Havana — by the end of May. A second
effort was initiated in the eastern provinces using Abdala shots. The
goal is to inoculate 70% of the country’s population by August, the rest
by the end of the year, Dr. Ileana Morales Suárez of Cuba’s Ministry of
Health reported on Cuban television.
Cuba’s medical and scientific achievements are possible because working
people made a revolution in January 1959 and took power out of the hands
of the capitalist rulers and their U.S. imperialist backers.
In 1962 the revolutionary government of Cuba began a countrywide
National Immunization Program, on the heels of a completely successful
mobilization that vaccinated every Cuban under 15 against polio in one week.
The new program, Miguel Galindo, its director, explained in 1999, relies
on four basic principles.
• Vaccination efforts encompass the entire Cuban people.
• Vaccination is integrated into primary health care services.
• The program relies on active community participation.
• Vaccination is free of charge.
Cuba’s goal is not only to provide inoculation against COVID-19 to its
population, and to anyone who visits Cuba, but also to make it available
around the world. Cuba’s revolutionary government is organizing to
provide free vaccines to the most exploited nations and at a sliding
scale to others.
Like other internationalist aid Cuba has provided around the world, the
vaccine development is done under the revolution’s principle, “We don’t
give what we have left over. We share what we have.”
We’re demonstrating here in Cuba that “this vaccine is effective and
that we can help fight the epidemic in the entire world,” José Luis
Saldívar told Cuban television as he volunteered for the Abdala clinical
trial in Guantánamo province.
Parallel clinical trials of the Soberana 2 are underway in Venezuela and
Iran, and other countries have expressed interest in getting the vaccine
as well. Iranian health officials say that millions of doses could be
produced under an agreement with Cuba that allows technology transfer
and joint production.
Tampa caravan: ‘End US embargo of Cuba!’
TAMPA, Fla. — Some 40 people, mostly Cuban Americans, joined a car
caravan here March 28, part of protests in the U.S. and around the world
demanding the U.S. government end its nearly 60-year embargo against
Cuba. The action was…
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developed a vaccine for polio, which has saved millions of lives. Unlike
the big pharmaceutical companies that place patents on drugs they market
— to jack up the prices and…
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Carl Sagan “It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance
between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all
hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great
openness to new ideas. Obviously those two modes of thought are in some
tension. But if you are able to exercise only one of these modes,
whichever one it is, you’re in deep trouble. If you are only skeptical,
then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new.
You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the
world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.) But every now
and then, maybe once in a hundred cases, a new idea turns out to be on
the mark, valid and wonderful. If you are too much in the habit of being
skeptical about everything, you are going to miss or resent it, and
either way you will be standing in the way of understanding and
progress. On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility
and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot
distinguish the useful as from the worthless ones.” ― Carl Sagan
