The whole message here is that a vaccine is still in the future. I doubt that.
I think it already exists. Yesterday, here in MA, there was a large protest of,
as they called themselves, "Trump nation". None of them were practicing safe
distancing and none were wearing masks. Do you think these wealthy "small
business" owners were already vaccinated by the Trump administration?
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
<blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On Behalf Of miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Monday, May 4, 2020 4:01 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] US Government Fears China will Give Away COVID-19
Vaccine for Free
US Government Fears China will Give Away COVID-19 Vaccine for Free "The
coronavirus pandemic is a clear instance in which the whole world shares a
common interest in developing and distributing a vaccine." - Dr.
Dean Baker
by Alan Macleod
May 04th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
The number of official global coronavirus mortalities surpassed a quarter of a
million people today, including over 69,000 in the U.S. (although this is very
likely an undercount). Polls show that the American people are extremely
worried about contracting the virus. However, the government has a much bigger
concern: that if they find a COVID-19 vaccine, China will copy it and
distribute it for free.
To many, it will not be immediately clear why it would be a problem for a
manufacturing superpower, home to 1.4 billion people, to inoculate itself and
others. But to the White House, this would be "stealing" a potential American
innovation. "Biomedical research has long been a focus of theft, especially by
the Chinese government, and vaccines and treatments for the coronavirus are
today's holy grail," said John C. Demers, the Assistant Attorney General for
National Security, adding that, "Putting aside the commercial value, there
would be great geopolitical significance to being the first to develop a
treatment or vaccine. We will use all the tools we have to safeguard American
research." The fact that intellectual property and the profits of multinational
pharmaceutical corporations are officially being put before saving lives, even
during a pandemic threatening the entirety of humanity, was not mentioned by
The New York Times, who covered Demers's remarks.
Dean Baker, Visiting Professor of Economics at the University of Utah and
Senior Economist at the Center for Economic Policy Research in Washington,
D.C., offered an alternative view, claiming that he would be delighted if China
"stole" vaccine technology and gave it to billions of people, telling MintPress
News that:
The coronavirus pandemic is a clear instance in which the whole world shares a
common interest in developing and distributing a vaccine. This should mean that
we have open research, where all findings are posted on the web as quickly as
possible, so that they can build on them. Once a vaccine is developed we should
want it spread throughout the world as quickly as possible at the lowest
possible cost. Trump's concern that China would somehow "steal" a vaccine means
that he is more concerned about protecting someone's profits here, as well as
possibly an ego trip (we're number one) than possibly saving hundreds of
thousands of lives.
Baker has previously advocated for replacing the system of private medical
research with a publicly-funded open source system that he believes will not
only save lives but will save money.
That the U.S. government is accusing other nations of hypothetical theft during
the pandemic is particularly noteworthy, seeing as it leads the world in the
confiscation and detention of medical supplies paid for and bound for other
countries. Barbados, for example, has accused the Trump administration of
"modern piracy" after it blocked a shipment of 20 ventilators to the island,
instead, keeping them for itself. U.S. officials also hijacked a plane full of
60 million masks bound for France while on the runway of a Chinese airport.
Meanwhile, at the height of the pandemic, an American military plane
mysteriously managed to fly back to Tennessee with half a million test kits
from Lombardy, Italy.
American pharmaceutical corporations have also been testing out their products
on Chinese COVID-19 patients, hoping to better understand what works as an
effective treatment. In March, the Trump administration attempted to compel a
German pharmaceutical corporation to move production to the U.S. in order to
make sure that America alone had access to and control of any coronavirus
vaccine it might produce. The president reportedly wished to ensure that it
would only be available on a for-profit basis. "Germany is not for sale," the
country's outraged economy minister replied, rejecting the profit motive.
In the early 1950s, American scientist Jonas Salk pioneered a world-changing
vaccine against polio, a deadly disease that tens of thousands of Americans
contracted annually. Instead of patenting it and making a fortune, he insisted
that his invention belonged to all of humanity. By 1994, polio was eradicated
in North America. Yet 70 years later, the logic of capitalism dictates that
where there is great utility, there are enormous profits to be made, and anyone
acting outside that system to reproduce a vaccine is not acting responsibly,
but "stealing." The fact that Washington wants to limit those who can drink
from any "holy grail" it might find to those who can pay for it shows how far
we have come from Salk's days.
