Bill Gates gives opinion on sharing vaccine production with other countries in interview with Sky News

Dis · Apr 26, 2021

Chopchop said:
That title is not at all what he said.

He makes a good point. Anyone who has the formula still needs to be trusted to use it safely and in compliance with all regulatory measures, and making it a free-for-all would harm trust in vaccines when someone inevitably halfasses it.

So instead we have a bunch of vaccines being sent to places the usa told to "wait their turn" which the usa also have said are questionable if they actually work and warn against using. Seems that trying to stop everyone having easy access to the data and methods to make the vaccines hasn't fixed the issue of random vaccines being made but instead meant the usa could use their money to prioritize the kids who want to party it up at spring break while other nations have to decide between using a questionable vaccine from elsewhere or letting their vulnerable population be left at insane risk for who knows how long. I'm glad the mega rich in the usa decided for the world to have these vaccines patented without other nations getting to have their say.

Oh and as for halfassing it, the usa literally fucked up production on vaccines by having a factory they started up mix ingredients, cancelled one of the vaccines being made at that factory going forward and also shipped a bunch of doses of the AZ vaccine to Canada and Mexico before figuring out they may have shipped over some fucked up ones. So I'm sorry that I don't believe it should be up to the usa and their pharmaceutical companies to created these things as they're the only people on earth with skills in technology and science. This was always about one thing, profit for those companies going forward and preventing the free use for the whole world.

WindUp · Apr 26, 2021

legitmately curious and not trying to antagonize, if the patent aren't a blocker at all why are countries like South Africa asking them WTO to ease them?

Chikor · Apr 26, 2021

sacrament said:
The US just pledged this sort of thing for India, in addition to the promise of 1B vaccinations by end of 2022.

I think you're trivializing the cost of this medical infrastructure. Outside a few very large/wealthy nations (e.g. Russia, India, China, USA, Israel) there is unfortunately very little investment outside of them. We can fix that, but that's a different problem. You can't suddenly have some of these nations have all the experts, infra, education, etc to build and maintain these things. It's a very serious problem - and it's under served - but that's not going to get solved immediately or just for COVID.

And this isn't the last pandemic - cause there are a number of them happening all the time - along with serious epidemics all over the global as we speak. It's a trillion dollar global problem with very little money provided by states but with over half our global population at daily risk for virus, pathogens, and unhealthy living/water conditions. It sucks.

I am not an expert on production capacity in all the countries in the world, but I am old enough to remember these exact same arguments being presented as to why we cannot waive AIDS meds patents.
And we didn't, for years, the Gates foundation was against that too. Millions of people died, until eventually Brazil decided they are just gonna ignore the patents and dare the world to come after them, and guess what, the gates foundation and pharma lobbyists were wrong, and generic AIDS drugs can be safe, just like other generic drugs.

collige · Apr 26, 2021

Hey, remember the thread about vaccine hesitancy and black people and how we can't treat their concerns the same as white people? I convinced my dad to get the shot. Know what was the reason he gave for it not trusting it? This:

Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

And now we're in a scenario where people are seriously arguing that MSF, the Nigerian gov't, the governments every single one of its neighbors are being unreasonable or uninformed in demanding IP rights from the very same company. A position supported by this billionaire, pharmaceutical corporations, and *checks notes* The Cato Institute.

Cool!

Kill3r7 · Apr 26, 2021

WindUp said:
legitmately curious and not trying to antagonize, if the patent aren't a blocker at all why are countries like South Africa asking them WTO to ease them?

They want a waiver to avoid having to deal with the TRIPS litigation that would follow. Also, they are hoping to have the ability to learn the processes of how these vaccines are made (the steps that aren't detailed in the patents).

Edit: TRIPS already includes provisions in it that require compulsory licensing of IP during a health crises to aid low income countries that lack the capacity to produce pharmaceutical products. This has become the fall back position of first world nations as to why they refuse to support the waiver.

dabig2 · Apr 26, 2021

Squarehard said:
You're quoting a quote that is in mid conversation, that is directly related to another quote that specifically speaks to this issue, so I'm not exactly sure if you're aware of where we are in that specific post you quoted.

I know the structure of a forum, a thread, and the posts I'm replying to, yes. Thanks.

collige said:
Hey, remember the thread about vaccine hesitancy and black people and how we can't treat their concerns the same as white people? I convinced my dad to get the shot. Know what was the reason he gave for it not trusting it? This:

Abdullahi v. Pfizer, Inc. - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

.

And now we're in a scenario where people are seriously arguing that MSF, the Nigerian gov't, the governments every single one of its neighbors are being unreasonable or uninformed in demanding IP rights from the very same company. A position supported by this billionaire, pharmaceutical corporations, and *checks notes* The Cato Institute.

Cool!

I mentioned earlier how hilarious it is when you separate this into "sides". I guess the rest of the world are deluded and misinformed and just complaining about the wrong thing, while these rich and mostly white ceos based in rich, exploiting countries are completely correct in why their profit-protecting schemes are not only right but optimal.

Because, you know, minorities inside and outside of the USA might distrust vaccines if not made by a for profit pharmaceutical company. We fucking love our pharmaceutical corporations, because the entire 20th century has apparently disappeared into a memory hole.

If we want to increase support for vaccines worldwide, telling these same people to go fuck themselves while treating them like colonial-era trash is 1 way. The other way is to not do that and give the world what it's been asking for months at this point.

Mulligan · Apr 26, 2021

Guys the ruling class and billionaires who stole billions of dollars from workers and impoverished countries are just looking out for impoverished countries when they say that they cannot trust these poor countries to produce life-saving vaccines at their own facilities.

It definitely has nothing to do with neocolonialism and the fact that this is essentially vaccine apartheid.

SquirrelSr · Apr 26, 2021

In a way, it was kind of obvious that Bill would make that argument considering he built Microsoft by enforcing patents and driving competitors underground or under his umbrella.

game-biz · Apr 26, 2021

Gates is 100% right.

firehawk12 · Apr 26, 2021

Meanwhile last October Moderna basically said they weren't enforcing patents on their work and are open to licensing patents if necessary:

Statement by Moderna on Intellectual Property Matters during the COVID-19 Pandemic | Moderna, Inc.

investors.modernatx.com

Beyond Moderna's vaccine, there are other COVID-19 vaccines in development that may use Moderna-patented technologies. We feel a special obligation under the current circumstances to use our resources to bring this pandemic to an end as quickly as possible. Accordingly, while the pandemic continues, Moderna will not enforce our COVID-19 related patents against those making vaccines intended to combat the pandemic. Further, to eliminate any perceived IP barriers to vaccine development during the pandemic period, upon request we are also willing to license our intellectual property for COVID-19 vaccines to others for the post pandemic period.

I guess Moderna is backwards company or something?

ChippyTurtle · Apr 26, 2021

Broad manufacturing of COVID-19 vaccines in Africa a ‘very tall order’

The barriers to manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines in Africa are high, but experts say waiving intellectual property rights won't solve that.

www.devex.com

The article is pretty fair for all viewpoints, but I want to point out this section, unless governments actively ensure vaccine and other medical production is subsidized, the reality of market consolidation will impact the future viability of the ability for production of vaccines.

Right now, there are shortages of COVID-19 vaccines globally, but there could be excesses later as more people are inoculated. Unknowns around the need for vaccines in the future include the effectiveness against new variants of the coronavirus, the length of protection that inoculation offers, and whether booster shots are needed.

"You can build all of this [capacity], but if you are not able to maintain production and not able to maintain demand, you're going to end up with a lot of dormant manufacturing sites," Perry said.

Starting in 2005, the World Health Organization worked to expand production capacity for pandemic influenza vaccines in 14 countries, including Egypt and South Africa, for over a decade. But the high cost of production relative to demand shuttered many plants.

"When you look at sustainability, it's not such a rosy picture. Many of those facilities are either already shut down or at risk of being shut down," said WHO Chief Scientist Soumya Swaminathan at a recent conference.

The continent also has segmented markets, with many countries and small economies, Gitahi said. Vaccines are often produced in large quantities at low prices, creating the necessity for large markets.

Yossarian · Apr 26, 2021

Look, I'm not going to claim to be an expert here but I'd be very surprised if he wasn't profiting off of this.

The Gates Foundation have grants all over the world, and Oxford University is one (example). Speaking with GF, Oxford University gave exclusive rights of the vaccine to AstraZeneca.

In an interview with Bloomberg at the time, Melinda said that they felt OU should partner with AZ because they had "no experience of bringing a vaccine to market". She also mentions GF's role in ensuring equitable pricing for 'developing' countries. OU appeared to agree in a press release; however, given GF invested $40 million into AZ in 2017, they'd surely profit from this in some way.

I don't know about vaccine regulatory law, but I do suspect Gates' concerns aren't borne out of any kind of altruism. He's an ex-tycoon looking down the barrel of his own mortality. Given his history of using IP law like a bludgeon, he sounds like he's still ruthless enough to be thinking about the patent during the next pandemic.

For all the good GF do, they're hardly a benign organisation. Even now, they're effectively supporting a fairly strong push from countries where pharmaceutical companies have strong lobbies, to block that IP waiver. Probably because, were the virus to become endemic, they won't make much profit if the product is already available to all. His regulatory rhetoric, whether it contains a kernel of truth or not, smells like bullshit to me.

(Christ's fat cock, I sound like a conspiracy nut.)

Deleted member 1088 · Apr 26, 2021

Samiya said:
I can't believe people are defending a billionaire who's advocating for the very same patent system that currently is contributing to killing thousands of people and prolonging the pandemic across the globe, especially against poorer countries (that also happens to be black and brown). What a disappointing thread.

This is Era, as long as the billionaire loosely supports my side they are immune to criticism, and it's actually a very complex issue that I will hem and haw you to defend passionately.

Deleted member 6230 · Apr 26, 2021

Gates is pos. Who appointed him the vaccine czar anyway. foh

XMonkey · Apr 26, 2021

Bill Gates threads on Era always bring out really good discussion.

GYODX · Apr 26, 2021

Yossarian said:
For all the good GF do, they're hardly a benign organisation.

I was curious so I followed this link, and this passage amused me given the conversation we're having today.

Since 2009, the BMGF has appeared to put more emphasis on funding programmes relating to pneumonia and child nutrition, for example. However, it still has an overwhelming focus on vaccines. One problem with the BMGF's heavy focus on developing new vaccines is that it detracts from other, more vital health priorities such as building resilient public health systems. Yet in May 2011, Bill Gates told the World Health Assembly:

"As we think about how to deploy our resources most effectively, one intervention stands out: vaccines. Today, I would like to talk about how you can provide the leadership to make this the Decade of Vaccines".

Yet why should vaccines 'stand out' as the critical need above all others? According to Gates, "Vaccines are an extremely elegant technology. They are inexpensive, they are easy to deliver, and they are proven to protect children from disease. At Microsoft, we dreamed about technologies that were so powerful and yet so simple". It seems as if the BMGF is applying the same logic to global health policy as it did to building a computer empire. Gates ended his speech by calling on all countries to follow his fixation on vaccines:

"Donor countries, you must increase your investment in vaccines and immunization, even though you are coping with budget crises... All 193 member states, you must make vaccines a central focus of your health systems".

The BMGF has been widely criticised for its prioritisation of technology, particularly vaccines and drugs, as development solutions. Research on new drugs and vaccines has been the single largest destination for BMGF funds, amounting to over a third of all grants given between 1998 and 2007, for example. Much of this focus is positive – through GAVI, for example, vaccines for Hepatitis B and the HiB (influenza) bacteria have been brought into widespread use. But as Steven Buchsbaum, deputy director of Discovery and Translational Sciences at the BMGF, was quoted as saying in 2015, the transition from looking more at technology to looking more at delivery "has not occurred more broadly within the foundation".

The heavy focus on vaccines risks distracting global health policy away from other priorities. University of Toronto public health professor Anne-Emanuelle Birn wrote in 2005 that the BMGF had a "narrowly conceived understanding of health as the product of technical interventions divorced from economic, social, and political contexts". According to health expert David McCoy, "rather than viewing the hundreds of thousands of child deaths from rotavirus infection as a clinical problem that needs a vaccine solution, a better approach might be to view it as a public health problem that needs a social, economic, or political intervention to ensure universal access to clean water and sanitation".

Yes Mr. Gates, why such a heavy focus on vaccines?

(Though I do concede that they raise some interesting points, particularly that sentence about a transition from technology development to delivery. I just think it's funny that back in 2016 people were criticizing Bill Gates for doing too much for vaccine development.

Sordid Plebeian · Apr 26, 2021

Shit title, reasonable answer

dabig2 · Apr 26, 2021

Tall4Life said:
This is Era, as long as the billionaire loosely supports my side they are immune to criticism, and it's actually a very complex issue that I will hem and haw you to defend passionately.

I really thought Bernie and Warren were supposed to be the ones favorable in this forum as they're clearly opposed to the pharma line, but I guess the billionaires and corporations have a better point!

"Black lives matter globally... President Biden, please help end vaccine apartheid." -

AFSC's @PaulineMuchina is in @truthout w/ @SenWarren & @SenSanders
addressing unequal distribution of vaccines along racial & economic lines around the world.

Read more:

Someone needs to educate them that it's just too damn hard, that big pharma are trying their best, and that there's little else to be done right now till 2023 for many of these countries.

Codeblue · Apr 26, 2021

This is pretty naked prioritization of IP rights over human life.

Like, yeah, there are challenges, but those are worth overcoming now so the global south isn't lagging three years behind everyone else for the next pandemic.

JABEE · Apr 26, 2021

Bill Gates is full of shit and spreads his paternalistic garbage as he pretends to give a shit about humanity.

Gates is a monopolist who only cares about the world as much as it will stroke his ego and continue to enrich his bank account.

Protecting Intellectual Property is more important to him than letting people in developing countries out from under his and other "benevolent" western non-profit organizations thumbs. It's a game and an experiment to Bill Gates.

Muppet of a Man · Apr 26, 2021

behOemoth said:
If Biontech can build one of the largest mRNA vaccine factories in 6 months, so can educated people in developing countries with a little help and maybe a little more time.

This. They won't help people in other countries do this because after this pandemic/emergency has subsided, they would no longer exclusively control and monopolize the advanced manufacturing processes and IP that goes back to the heart of the question in the first place.

So, yes, while what Gates said may technically be true in the immediate term, when applied going forward it really is him providing a cop out answer.

Mekanos · Apr 26, 2021

infinite said:
Gates is pos. Who appointed him the vaccine czar anyway. foh

Himself.

Shyotl · Apr 26, 2021

I'm tired of the opinions of rich fucks even mattering in regard to national health policies, but okay Bill.

Plainly obvious that philanthropy is effectively just buying leverage and influence at this point.

danm999 · Apr 26, 2021

Mekanos said:
Himself.

And people say meritocracy is dead

mAcOdIn · Apr 26, 2021

Chopchop said:
That title is not at all what he said.

He makes a good point. Anyone who has the formula still needs to be trusted to use it safely and in compliance with all regulatory measures, and making it a free-for-all would harm trust in vaccines when someone inevitably halfasses it.

Would you say it's worse to maybe increase vaccine hesitancy in a country that maybe may fuck it up or to have more people die as they wait for their country's turn at importing vaccines?

Further, this mindset punishes all the possible countries who wouldn't fuck it up. And it implies people are fucking stupid, like if Egypt fucked theirs up that people in India wouldn't take theirs.

I also find the concern of abandoned facilities funny. If years later a handful of abandoned facilities across the world is the price the world paid to save an additional hundreds of thousands or millions of lives, uh, that's a good trade, no? There's abandoned buildings everywhere, who cares if we add a few more.

I think this is pretty simple, it would have been better to cooperate with governments who were willing to do so before anything was produced so they could hit the ground running. If after the pandemic they shutter the place who gives a fuck?

What I think Gates was most afraid of was the precedent. Oxford very early was open to all of this and if all the vaccine makers had been publicly shamed into the same agreement before vaccines were even being produced this could have marked a very real change in how the public expects pharmaceutical companies to act in the future. I also think that for Gates the act of his charity being necessary was more important than the goal of vaccinating people. Any country that did develop their own capacity to manufacture vaccines has less need for Bill Gates and this he'd have less power to force them to do things his way in exchange for aid.

Everyone being all open in October is still good but it's less valuable because now you start to feel like maybe you should just wait for them to make it and sell it to you.

The Boat · Apr 26, 2021

Stupid poor countries.

Pwnz · Apr 26, 2021

Mr. Wonderful said:
Seems like it should be less of a "No", and more of a "Yes, if...".

It's amazing how people still try to paint Gates as some villain in 2021. He could have checked out 20 years ago and let his wealth keep compounding and he'd be a trillionaire but instead he works constantly and gives away his wealth to saving millions while also publicly saying that the wealthy should be taxed more.

WindUp · Apr 26, 2021

Pwnz said:
It's amazing how people still try to paint Gates as some villain in 2021. He could have checked out 20 years ago and let his wealth keep compounding and he'd be a trillionaire but instead he works constantly and gives away his wealth to saving millions while also publicly saying that the wealthy should be taxed more.

Tech billionaires are staying "very, very quiet" on proposals to tax their wealth

It is relatively easy for a billionaire to say they support higher taxes. More is on the line if they are asked to do something about it.

www.vox.com

Bill Gates criticizes Warren wealth tax, she responds

Billionaire Bill Gates may not be a fan of presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren’s wealth tax. But she’s aiming to change his mind.

money.yahoo.com

To be fair, he has publicly said he thought greater taxes on the highest earners is a good idea, but he hasn't really advocated for actual progressive tax policy and he hasn't used much of his vast power to advance even the more left-center position he has taken publicly.

danm999 · Apr 26, 2021

Pwnz said:
It's amazing how people still try to paint Gates as some villain in 2021. He could have checked out 20 years ago and let his wealth keep compounding and he'd be a trillionaire but instead he works constantly and gives away his wealth to saving millions while also publicly saying that the wealthy should be taxed more.

uhh his wealth has been compounding and it grew like double digits during the pandemic

mAcOdIn · Apr 27, 2021

Pwnz said:
It's amazing how people still try to paint Gates as some villain in 2021. He could have checked out 20 years ago and let his wealth keep compounding and he'd be a trillionaire but instead he works constantly and gives away his wealth to saving millions while also publicly saying that the wealthy should be taxed more.

I think some people need to understand something. Gates isn't a villain, he's just not a good guy either. He shouldn't be celebrated is all.

When discussing Gates and what he does in the United States he'd accomplish far more if he just did like the Koch brothers did and really push the message that the rich need to pay more taxes and all that shit. That would probably do more than trying to come up with different ways to rate teachers or getting kids tablets in underfunded schools as opposed to just fixing their fucking funding. But Gates' true flaw is that I think he likes being important, he likes having purpose and if we taxed a fuckton of his money away and just didn't need to jump through his hoops to get his charity for whatever his next pet project was what would he do with his life? It all comes down to despite Bill Gates and you and I more or less agreeing on the broad strokes Gates wants to be the one in charge of the money. And I get it, it's his money after all, but you can't fix issues when the way you combat it is by relying on charity from bored Billionaires with good hearts but inflated egos who want to control the purse strings. I think Gates also knows that but he just can't give up his role. A true philanthropist should yearn for the day where they're not needed but I don't think Gates can handle that.

Now, internationally things are a bit different since their problem isn't that Gates and his ilk aren't paying enough taxes so most of the time what he does overseas is a net positive.

StrangeADT · Apr 27, 2021

Mr. Wonderful said:
Seems like it should be less of a "No", and more of a "Yes, if...".

Synopsys? If you don't know what I mean or why that isn't a misspelt word, ignore me...

take_marsh · Apr 27, 2021

I'm still reading this (it's a long read) but I feel it's worth sharing: https://newrepublic.com/article/162000/bill-gates-impeded-global-access-covid-vaccines

Quick snip from the article:

This winter, while Gates assured the world that intellectual property was a red herring, a bloc of developing countries at the WTO explained the need for a waiver on certain intellectual property provisions by pointing to the "rather large gap [that] exists between what COVAX or ACT-A can deliver and what is required in developing and least developed countries."

The forceful statement continued:

The model of donation and philanthropic expediency cannot solve the fundamental disconnect between the monopolistic model it underwrites and the very real desire of developing and least developed countries to produce for themselves.… The artificial shortage of vaccines is primarily caused by the inappropriate use of intellectual property rights.

Click to expand...

Click to shrink...

Another statement by a different bloc of countries added, "COVID19 reveals the deep structural inequality in access to medicines globally, and a root cause is IP that sustains and dominates industry's interests at the cost of lives."

Gates is certain he knows better. But his failure to anticipate a crisis of supply, and his refusal to engage those who predicted it, have complicated the carefully maintained image of an all-knowing, saintly mega-philanthropist. COVAX presents a high-stakes demonstration of Gates's deepest ideological commitments, not just to intellectual property rights but also to the conflation of these rights with an imaginary free market in pharmaceuticals—an industry dominated by companies whose power derives from politically constructed and politically imposed monopolies. Gates has been tacitly and explicitly defending the legitimacy of knowledge monopolies since his first Gerald Ford–era missives against open-source software hobbyists. He was on the side of these monopolies during the miserable depths of the 1990s African AIDS crisis. He's still there today, defending the status quo and running effective interference for those profiting by the billions from their control of Covid-19 vaccines.

I think the idea that other countries aren't capable of producing/manufacturing a vaccine is ridiculous.

mugurumakensei · Apr 27, 2021

behOemoth said:
If Biontech can build one of the largest mRNA vaccine factories in 6 months, so can educated people in developing countries with a little help and maybe a little more time.

Are you talking about biontech that's been working on mRNA based vaccines since 2014?

behOemoth · Apr 27, 2021

mugurumakensei said:
Are you talking about biontech that's been working on mRNA based vaccines since 2014?

I'm talking about Biontech's Marburg industrial production facility. A business area in which they had no know-how until recently.

mugurumakensei · Apr 27, 2021

behOemoth said:
I'm talking about Biontech's Marburg industrial production facility. A business area in which they had no know-how until recently.

They have a partnership with Pfizer that has regulatory know how world wide with a company (Biontech) that knows how to efficiently manufacture mRNA based vaccines combined with a large amount of funds to secure resources between both of them.

Samiya · Apr 27, 2021

take_marsh said:
I think the idea that other countries aren't capable of producing/manufacturing a vaccine is ridiculous.

it's also an incredibly racist notion that brown and black countries aren't able to produce the vaccine themselves, it's only the advanced white countries who have the ability to do so.

eathdemon · Apr 27, 2021

Muppet of a Man said:
This. They won't help people in other countries do this because after this pandemic/emergency has subsided, they would no longer exclusively control and monopolize the advanced manufacturing processes and IP that goes back to the heart of the question in the first place.

So, yes, while what Gates said may technically be true in the immediate term, when applied going forward it really is him providing a cop out answer.

bingo, but that applies to the countries asking in question too. this entire conversation has nothing to do with covid, if it did india wouldnt be asking becouse they can make their own vaccine ads it. a lot of countries want the mrna tech, which is showing more than a little promise as a nextgen mediccal platform, whitout doing any of the R&D and paying to license it ether.

Deleted member 8166 · Apr 27, 2021

Samiya said:
it's also an incredibly racist notion that brown and black countries aren't able to produce the vaccine themselves, it's only the advanced white countries who have the ability to do so.

what do you expect. he got rich from the suffering of others and by stealing the ideas of others.

behOemoth · Apr 27, 2021

mugurumakensei said:
They have a partnership with Pfizer that has regulatory know how world wide with a company (Biontech) that knows how to efficiently manufacture mRNA based vaccines combined with a large amount of funds to secure resources between both of them.

Biontech simply got the support of resident equipment suppliers how to handle and build the production facility. It was surely tough but doable at warp speed. mRNA vaccines were a novel endeavor for all participants and as the numbers show it can be implemented very fast, but the current solution is to keep developing countries in custody while they take their first shots at the mercy of the rich sometime in 2021 only for a fraction of their population.

Nox Potens · Apr 27, 2021

Man, fuck Bill Gates. He, like every other billionaire, is a fucking monster.

Leandras · Apr 27, 2021

Good guy Gates and other neo-colonisers protecting non-white countries from their own stupidity and laziness. /s

Kin5290 · Apr 27, 2021

Ivalice said:
Genuinely confused as to why anyone believes or trust Bill Gates when it comes to any of this vaccine stuff. The dude is about as qualified in this area as any random forum poster - he's only relevant because he's obscenely wealthy.

He's relevant because he has several decades of experience in working to curtail epidemic infectious disease in the developing world through the Gates Foundation.

Joni · Apr 27, 2021

Yossarian said:
In an interview with Bloomberg at the time, Melinda said that they felt OU should partner with AZ because they had "no experience of bringing a vaccine to market".

Are we sure she was talking about Oxford having no experience? Because that is a damn quote that should really be thrown back in their face.

Kin5290 · Apr 27, 2021

Joni said:
Are we sure she was talking about Oxford having no experience? Because that is a damn quote that should really be thrown back in their face.

Why would Oxford, a university, have any experience with bringing a pharmaceutical product to market? Let alone completion of massive, multi-center Phase 3 RCTs?

Jonnax · Apr 27, 2021

Ivalice said:
Genuinely confused as to why anyone believes or trust Bill Gates when it comes to any of this vaccine stuff. The dude is about as qualified in this area as any random forum poster - he's only relevant because he's obscenely wealthy.

The foundation has been running for 20 years.
It has 1602 employees: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/foundation-fact-sheet

They've got a president of Global Health: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/leadership/trevor-mundel
He's got a medical degree. Also " Prior to joining the foundation in 2011, Trevor was global head of development with Novartis and previously was involved in clinical research at Pfizer and Parke-Davis."

What would a 4 year undergraduate degree do to make him more qualified?
You're saying he has learnt nothing, and doesn't work with experts in the field?

You seem to think he just throws out uneducated hot takes.

Joni said:
Are we sure she was talking about Oxford having no experience? Because that is a damn quote that should really be thrown back in their face.

Would a university be able to conduct a phase 3 trial?

Phases of clinical research - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Or a pharmaceutical company?

They're not AZ. What are they throwing back in their faces?

-----

The level of understanding around this is so damn low.
What's the difference between these hot takes and people going "BILL GATES IS PUTTING MICROCHIPS IN PEOPLE!!!"

I think I find so annoying about this. Is that western liberals get all up in arms the open sourcing thing but they will always get vaccines from the best factories in the world.
In their utopia where anyone can set up a factory, it'll be those in poor countries that have the higher risk of getting a tainted vaccine.
No way that unscrupulous people will set of factories with lower standards or cheat in batch testing.

I'm starting to believe that many western "liberals" would prefer that the Gate's foundation's work against Malaria and Polio to not have happened at all. Because it doesn't meet their ideological purity tests since he's an evil billionaire. And they're all #evil.
Whilst not even knowing the names or deeds of billionaire arms dealers, polluters and war mongers.

Deleted member 82064 · Apr 27, 2021

Ivalice said:
Genuinely confused as to why anyone believes or trust Bill Gates when it comes to any of this vaccine stuff. The dude is about as qualified in this area as any random forum poster - he's only relevant because he's obscenely wealthy.

It's sad that we live in a world where success is mainly measured by wealth. Especially now when Silicon Valley is full of billionaires and we have to listen their "wise takes" on how to make world better :(

Mindwipe · Apr 27, 2021

Samiya said:
it's also an incredibly racist notion that brown and black countries aren't able to produce the vaccine themselves, it's only the advanced white countries who have the ability to do so.

It's really not. Any African country could produce a vaccine themselves *with twenty years of sustained investment in infrastructure and supply chains* in order to create manufacturing facilities.

The problem is that is eighteen years too long to be useful in this case, and by the time you get anywhere near having built it Covid will be a distant memory and politicians will inevitably row back from the investment, as outside of a once in a century pandemic there is little requirement for those facilities.

It's amazing on this board that people do not understand this is like chipset fabrication. Lots of rich western countries today have suddenly released that they have no meaningful fab capacity and there's a shortage. The problem is you can't create one in six months, and the economic incentive to do so looks much less clear outside of the short term shortage. There is no magic wand to shortcut that, even for rich developed nations with money to burn.

Deleted member 82064 · Apr 27, 2021

GYODX said:
I think what he's saying is perfectly reasonable. Infrastructure is the bottleneck here, not IP. It's very lazy criticism.

Who the hell builds up infrastructure if there are no guarantees they will get IP rights? Why not waver IPs and see what countries can and will build up proper infra?

Joni · Apr 27, 2021

Kin5290 said:
Why would Oxford, a university, have any experience with bringing a pharmaceutical product to market? Let alone completion of massive, multi-center Phase 3 RCTs?

Jonnax said:
They're not AZ. What are they throwing back in their faces?

if the motivation to go with AstraZeneca is based on Oxford not having experience with marketing vaccines, then the choice should not have fallen on a company that has no experience with vaccines... Their inexperience with vaccines has caused delays in getting the vaccine approved in both the EU - due to the lacking data on aged participants - and in the US - due to the slow sharing of information during and after the trial.

Mindwipe · Apr 27, 2021

Takuma said:
Who the hell builds up infrastructure if there are no guarantees they will get IP rights? Why not waver IPs and see what countries can and will build up proper infra?

Building up the infrastructure will take much, much, much longer than after Covid has gone away, so waving the IP rights would make no difference.

Bill Gates gives opinion on sharing vaccine production with other countries in interview with Sky News

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