mazzucato20_Robin UtrechtSOPA ImagesLightRocket via Getty Images_covid vaccine

Impfstoffe für Menschen, nicht für Profite

Dec 1, 2020 Mariana Mazzucato , Henry Lishi Li, Els Torreele

LONDON – Jüngste Ankündigungen über die in Studien nachgewiesene Wirksamkeit von Covid-19-Impfstoffen haben Hoffnungen geweckt, dass eine Rückkehr zur Normalität in Sicht ist. Die vorläufigen Daten zu den neuartigen mRNA-Impfstoffen von Pfizer/BioNTech und Moderna präsentieren sich höchst ermutigend und deuten darauf hin, dass ihre Zulassung für den Notfalleinsatz bevorsteht. Und Nachrichten der letzten Zeit über die (etwas geringere) Wirksamkeit des Impfstoffs von AstraZeneca und der Universität Oxford lassen Optimismus aufkommen, dass noch weitere Durchbrüche bevorstehen.

Theoretisch würde die Verfügbarkeit eines wirksamen Impfstoffs den Anfang vom Ende der Covid-19-Pandemie bedeuten. In der Praxis stehen wir allerdings noch nicht einmal am Ende des Anfangs der Bereitstellung eines notwendigen „Impfstoffs für die Menschen” der gerecht verteilt wird und für alle, die ihn benötigen, frei verfügbar ist.

Freilich ist es zu würdigen, wenn innerhalb weniger Monate ein Impfstoff entwickelt wird. Der Menschheit ist ein gewaltiger technologischer Sprung nach vorn gelungen. Als Sprungbrett fungierten jedoch jahrzehntelange massive öffentliche Investitionen in Forschung und Entwicklung.

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Mariana Mazzucato

Writing for PS since 2015
38 Commentaries

Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the Economics of Innovation and Public Value at University College London, is Founding Director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose and Chair of the World Health Organization’s Council on the Economics of Health For All . She is the author of The Value of Everything: Making and Taking in the Global Economy (Penguin Books, 2019), The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Sector Myths (Penguin Books, 2018), and, most recently, Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism (Penguin Books, 2022).

Henry Lishi Li

Writing for PS since 2020
1 Commentary

Henry Lishi Li is a research fellow in health innovation at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

Els Torreele

Writing for PS since 2020
2 Commentaries

Els Torreele is a visiting policy fellow at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose.

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 7 Comments on this article

Elizabeth Pula Dec 9, 2020

The entire design of the virus and the vaccine is most definitely for profit.
The woulda, coulda, shoulda is just a debate between the should not have to begin with.

The new normal VS the new new not normal:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/covid-vaccine-allergic-reactions-uk-b1768530.html

VS

https://theconversation.com/should-covid-19-vaccines-be-mandatory-two-experts-discuss-150322
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Rajiv Chopra Dec 8, 2020

The Pfizer vaccine will be useless in 'developing' nations like my own. My understanding is that, even in the West, it will not be easy to roll it out.

I am also a bit worried about the side effects. It seems that we have no choice but to rush the vaccine. However, we will see if there are unforeseen side effects.
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Elizabeth Pula Dec 7, 2020

The only real asset anyone really ever has is their health.

Presently, the funding in the US that Congress is considering is held up due to debate over manufacturer's liabilities VS. citizens rights to their healthy bodies.

"What are the plans for continued monitoring of COVID-19 vaccines authorized by FDA for emergency use?
FDA expects vaccine manufacturers to include in their EUA requests a plan for active follow-up for safety, including deaths, hospitalizations, and other serious or clinically significant adverse events, among individuals who receive the vaccine under an EUA, to inform ongoing benefit-risk determinations to support continuation of the EUA.
FDA also expects manufacturers who receive an EUA to continue their clinical trials to obtain additional safety and effectiveness information and pursue licensure (approval).
Post-authorization vaccine safety monitoring is a federal government responsibility shared primarily by FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), along with other agencies involved in healthcare delivery. Post-authorization safety monitoring during the COVID-19 pandemic vaccination program will aim to continuously monitor the safety of COVID-19 vaccines to rapidly detect safety problems if they exist. There will be multiple, complementary systems in place with validated analytic methods that can rapidly detect signals for possible vaccine safety problems. The U.S. government has a well-established post-authorization/post-approval vaccine safety monitoring infrastructure that will be scaled up to meet the needs of a large-scale COVID-19 vaccination program. The U.S. government – in partnership with health systems, academic centers, and private sector partners – will use multiple existing vaccine safety monitoring systems to monitor COVID-19 vaccines in the post-authorization/approval period. Some of these systems are the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS), the Vaccine Safety Datalink (VSD), the Biologics Effectiveness and Safety (BEST) Initiative, and Medicare claims data."

(quoted from the FDA.gov website today 12/07/2020. )

That quote is from the FDA.gov website. Per the quote, any company distributing a vaccine with only EUA is required to have, and do-WHAT???

”FDA expects vaccine manufacturers to include in their EUA requests a plan for active follow-up for safety, including deaths, hospitalizations, and other serious or clinically significant adverse events, among individuals who receive the vaccine under an EUA, to inform ongoing benefit-risk determinations to support continuation of the EUA.”

When I read that sentence from the FDA, I presume there is an implied/ some legal requirement of PROTECTION for anyone receiving the vaccine that experience negative outcomes to their body, due to injection of the vaccine/s into their body. However, no level of responsibility is specifically written in that FDA statement, as quoted.

However, at the get-go in the US, before any distribution of the new MRNA vaccines, which are being released with only the EUA, Congress is already considering exempting any manufacturer from any financial responsibility, due to NOT allowing anyone to sue any manufacturer, or employer due to COVID exposure/vaccinations.

Admittedly, my generalized conclusion as noted in my prior sentence may or may not be a mis-interpretation of just how exempt any business will be, with all RISK pushed to any and all persons required to pay for, and forced to receive the vaccine injections just to be able to work, drive, and basically any freedom from a lockdown/ jailed, confined existence based on any and all executive, and magisterial orders that are being proclaimed across the US through December of 2020.

So, it looks to me like there will most probably be absolutely no risk for any employer, or for any manufacturer, while any citizen will be at TOTAL RISK to have some unproven "still-in-final-testing stage 4" substance, with no real known documented results over any time span, let alone, the minimum 2 year time span that is the minimum for FDA real licensing not just an EUA, as citizens are “ordered” to have the questionable, unproven substance injected into their body.

Just what kind of right or wrong level of real action is occurring?
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Robert REYNOLDS Dec 7, 2020

Dear Mariana, Henry and Els,

I hate to be the one to break the news to you but there is never going to be anything that even resembles “the promise of a universal, freely available “people’s vaccine”, while western society operates under a free-market, economic rationalist system with inter alia, its privately owned pharmaceutical industry.

The pharmaceutical industry, like all essential services, operates solely for the purpose of making a profit. Lamentations about the unfairness of business practice conducted in a capitalist economy is rather akin to the brothel owner who complains that the staff are having sex with the clients. It is what will inevitably happen.

I sincerely do not mean to be rude but when you say,

“But for technological advances to translate into Health for All, innovations that are created collectively should be governed in the public interest, not for private profit.”

This to me reflects a high degree of naiveté.

As soon as the whiff of profit is associated with any innovation that is created collectively or otherwise, then the capitalist sharks begin to circle. You immediately hear the platitudinous, disingenuous and self-serving old argument about how ‘efficient’ the private sector is compared with publically owned enterprises.

In your final paragraph you state that, “….there is a better way to do things”. I agree. That ‘better way’ would involve nationalizing the entire pharmaceutical industry and running it in a way that benefits the whole of humanity and not a few greedy shareholders and company executives.
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Leo Arouet Dec 6, 2020

It is a challenge to bring the public good that vaccines represent to low- and middle-income countries. The usufruct of the vaccines that have been financed with public funds is a contradiction. Thanks for the comment.
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Sadly No Dec 3, 2020

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