In recent weeks there have been several articles noting the enormous wealth that a small number of people have made off of the vaccines and treatments developed to control the pandemic. Many see this as an unfortunate outcome of our efforts to contain the pandemic. In that view, containing the pandemic is an immensely important goal, if some people get incredibly rich as result, it’s a price well worth paying. After all, maybe we can even tax back some of their wealth after the fact.
The infuriating part of this story is that it is so obviously not true. But, just as followers of Donald Trump are prepared to believe any crazy story he tells about the stolen election, our intellectual types are willing to accept the idea that the only way we could have gotten vaccines as quickly as we did was by granting a small number of companies and individuals patent monopolies. And, just as no amount of evidence can dissuade Trumpers from believing their guy actually won the election, it is not possible to get most people involved in policy debates to consider the possibility that we don’t need patent monopolies to finance the development of drugs or vaccines.
This is especially disturbing in the case of the current crop of vaccines developed in the United States and Europe. The development of mRNA technology was done
— source commondreams.org | Dean Baker | Jun 6, 2021
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