It's a relief for me when an issue emerges where black-or-white thinking doesn't work because I don't have to get angry about it.
Such an issue is whether the U.S. should waive patent protections on the Covid vaccines in order to facilitate greater access for poor countries.
The answer is yes, of course, that is the right thing to do. But we also need to protect the companies involved as well as the system that encourages the type of innovation that led to the creation of the vaccines in the first place.
Since I bash capitalism on a regular basis, and that is richly deserved, I need to be the first to say it is nonetheless the best system yet devised to stimulate the development of new products. And the profit motive is the basis of that system.
Plus all of the philanthropy that fuels our non-profits and worthy causes comes from families that have benefited from capitalism -- directly or indirectly. First you need wealth before you can become a philanthropist.
But behind every great fortune is a crime -- Balzac said that.
In this context, the U.S. as a society is so much wealthier than any other nation in the world, it only makes sense to at east temporally suspend the patent protection on the Covid vaccines our corporations have developed. Most countries cannot afford to pay for them anyway, let alone develop effective vaccines on their own.
This calculation is further enhanced by self-interest -- it is demonstrably in the self-interest of richer societies to help the rest of the global population get vaccinated because our health is inter-connected.
So the Biden administration seems to be on track to confirming an optimal policy by temporarily allowing Third World countries to get access to the vaccines without damaging the long-term incentives of the corporations who created them to continue their innovative efforts.
Also, we are likely in the early stages of a cycle where the virus will continue to mutate, requiring new vaccines for a long time forward. The polio vaccine was created in the 50s and is still needed almost 70 years later.
No vaccine is yet available for HIV/AIDs, though treatments to limit the disease's impacts were developed under the same system of patent protection and market incentives.
The complexity of all of this is why it is usually not a good idea to give too much credence to those who are flatly ideological -- i.e., anti-capitalist or unapologetically pro-market. As is almost always the case, the extremes are wrong and reasonable regulation is the answer.
But when it comes to the long term, we still are going to need a better system than capitalism to survive climate change.
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BELOW THE FOLD: For the first time in a long time, I watched Cameron Crowe's "Almost Famous" Thursday. Lots of familiar moments -- the address of the Rolling Stone office on This Street, the actors playing Cameron, Ben Fong-Torres, and Jann Wenner. Everyone looked right; there's even a guy in one shot looking a lot like I did back then.
Most accurate of all was the long editorial table -- so long, in fact, that when Mother Jones inherited it after RS moved to New York, it had to be cut in half in order to be transported from Third Street to its new office on Market Street.
When I finally saw it again, a couple years later, the Mother Jones staffers asked did I know why there were gouges in the table's surface. How did they get there?
The answer was yes, I knew. Hunter Thompson made them by stabbing the table with his knife.
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Headlines:
* Why patents on COVID vaccines are so contentious -- The Biden administration’s call to lift patent protections on COVID-19 vaccines to help poor parts of the world get more doses has drawn praise from some countries and health advocates. But it has run into resistance from the pharmaceutical industry and others, who say it won’t help curb the outbreak any time soon and will hurt innovation. (AP)
* The administration of Joe Biden plans to support a temporary waiver on intellectual property rules preventing developing countries from mass-producing generic COVID-19 vaccines, U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai said, allowing a vast increase in global vaccine production. While the U.S. doesn't have the power to unilaterally enact the patent waiver, the support is a relief for global public health advocates. [HuffPost]
* U.S. Vaccinations Are Slowing. What’s to Blame? -- Use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine has taken a hit after it was paused by the federal government, but the rate of Moderna and Pfizer vaccinations has been falling as well. (NYT)
* Several world leaders on Thursday praised the U.S. move to expand access to COVID-19 vaccines for poor nations by suspending patent protections on the shots. But it wasn't clear if that would actually lead to the measures being lifted — and what it would mean if they were. (AP)
* Biden commits to waiving vaccine patents in bid for speed -- Liberals hailed the president’s decision as a necessary step for saving lives while restoring America’s position on the global stage. But the drug industry said the move would spark new competition for limited ingredients. (WP)
* Taking ‘Extraordinary Measures,’ Biden Backs Suspending Patents on Vaccines (NYT)
* CDC: Virus could be under control in U.S. by this summer (WP)
* U.S. Unemployment Claims Reach New Covid-19 Pandemic Low (WSJ)
* U.S. vaccination effort’s new phase includes PSAs from Sesame Street, free beer for each shot (WP)
* U.S. schools turn focus to mental health of students reeling from pandemic. (Reuters)
* The South Carolina House voted to add a firing squad to the state’s execution methods amid a lack of lethal-injection drugs — a measure meant to jump-start executions in a state that once had one of the busiest death chambers in the nation. Condemned inmates will have to choose either being shot or electrocuted if lethal injection drugs aren't available. [AP]
* President Biden gave an impassioned defense of his plans to increase taxes on high earners, saying “this is about making the average multimillionaire pay just a fair share.” (NYT)
* More than half of California’s public school students are still in distance learning. (Edsource)
* Chicken Shortage Sends Prices Soaring; Restaurants Can’t Keep Up -- Spicy chicken sandwiches, hot wings and a labor crunch push poultry prices to records. Some restaurants are running out of or limiting sales of tenders, filets and wings, cutting into some of their most reliable sales. (WSJ)
* One key to getting women back to work post-pandemic: Childcare (Reuters)
* Facebook’s battle with errant world leaders has only just begun (WP)
* Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a major rewrite of Florida’s elections law on Thursday, tightening rules around drop boxes and mail-in voting in the presidential battleground. Critics say the changes will make it harder for voters, particularly the elderly and people of color, to cast ballots. (AP)
* Federal Judge Strikes Down Moratorium on Evicting Renters (NYT)
* Biden officials make recommendations for protecting 30% of U.S. land, water (Reuters)
* Covid-19 Retreats in the West, but the Pandemic Fight Is Far From Over -- The center of the global pandemic has shifted decisively to low- and middle-income countries, fueling sickness and death on a scale that trends suggest could quickly exceed 2020’s world-wide toll. (WSJ)
* Liz Cheney told the truth. Republicans must decide whether they value Trump over it. (Editorial Board/WP)
* Deepening Drought Holds 'Ominous' Signs For Wildfire Threat In The West (NPR)
* Faced with climate challenges, Vietnamese rice farmers switch to shrimp (Reuters)
* “I operate with a European mind, and I also operate with an American mind. That’s why no one can figure me out. It has nothing to do with ‘Republican versus Democrat.’ I never paid attention to any of this political stuff, period, because I think that both are full of crap.” -- Arnold Schwarzenegger (California Today)
* Google Adapts To Long-Term Telework, Offers Employees Hybrid Workweek (NPR)
* Study finds around 15% of Ivory Coast's cocoa farms are in protected forest (Reuters)
* The herd of sheep on the U-C Davis campus are part of an experiment to see if they are more effective at maintaining the landscape than their machine counterparts. (Instagram/ @UCDavis_sheepmowers)
* U.N. methane report ups pressure on EU to tackle the planet-warming gas (Reuters)
* Want To Send A Mean Tweet? Twitter's New Feature Wants You To Think Again -- Twitter released a new feature that detects potentially offensive replies on its service and asks users to review a message before sending. (NPR)
* Mark Zuckerberg Asks Facebook Oversight Board To Rule On Whether Argument Wife’s Fault (The Onion)
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"Give a Little" (excerpt)
Song by Ash and Naila
So give a little piece of your love
Give a little piece of your heartache
Give a little piece of your touch
Give a little piece of your heartbreak
-30-
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