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Council of Canadians says Canada bowing to pressure from “Big Pharma”

Homepage Analysis Council of Canadians says Canada bowing to pressure from "Big Pharma"
Analysis

Council of Canadians says Canada bowing to pressure from “Big Pharma”

December 29, 2021
By CDN Health Coalition
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By Pat Van Horne, USW member of the CHC Board of Directors

As of this holiday season of giving, Canada continues to resist the international effort to temporarily lift patents on vaccines and other essential medicines, ignoring the need for the fair global distribution of vaccines.

The lobbying influence of “Big Pharma” on the Trudeau government is outlined in The Breach, an online news outlet launched in March 2021. The article, How Canada became a vaccine villain, says Canada’s new friendship with drug companies has also led to the government abandoning its universal pharmacare agenda.

Writer Nikolas Barry-Shaw, Trade and Privatization Campaigner for the Council of Canadians, a Canadian Health Coalition member, recounts how India and South Africa approached the World Trade Organization (WTO) in October, 2020, with a proposal to ensure cheaper, generic production of vaccines, therapeutics and other medical products needed to fight COVID-19.

“ . . .By suspending the WTO’s agreement of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), other pharmaceutical companies could increase the supply of vaccines and bring down the prices,” said the proposal.

More than 120 countries, including the U.S., have rallied behind the “TRIPS waiver” to varying degrees. But not Canada.

Industry ‘threats’ of future supply shortage

The pharmaceutical industry’s official voice in Ottawa, Innovative Medicines Canada, which represents Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, appears to have convinced the Trudeau government that temporarily suspending patents at the WTO would be a “disappointing step that will create greater uncertainty and unpredictability” for the future supply of vaccines.

Barry-Shaw notes that the pandemic has produced an unprecedented windfall for Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca. Pfizer and Moderna have posted astronomical profits and created several new billionaires among their executives and shareholders. Meanwhile, the lopsided distribution to lower-income countries has created what the World Health Organization (WHO) calls “vaccine apartheid”.

According to Barry-Shaw, Canada has delivered only 8 per cent of the 200 million doses it had pledged to donate early on in the pandemic.

“What we need is political will,” said Bolivia’s Vice-Minister of Foreign Trade, Benjamin Blanco, earlier this year. “We need the governments of developed countries to be able to think of life before the interests of a few transnational pharmaceutical companies.”

  • Read “How Canada became a vaccine villain” by Nikolas Barry-Shaw published by The Breach on December 2, 2021
Tags: COVID-19

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A recent @globeandmail editorial advocated for better health care but perpetuated harmful ideas when it comes to refugees and migrants, marking some as deserving and others as not. Check out @EmilioRod_sv's reply.

Emilio Rodríguez (he/him)@EmilioRod_sv

Media oversight is critically important, especially when harmful ideas are casually thrown around. In this article, the @globeandmail calls for a system that gives “speedy asylum to genuine refugees and speedy deportation to economic migrants.” (1/3) https://tgam.ca/3nEhkvS

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Find posts prior to January 1, 2021
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Tuesday, 28, Jun
“Medicare did not fall from the sky”: expert
Tuesday, 28, Jun
Canadians respond to devastating abortion rights rollback in the U.S.
Monday, 27, Jun
Health care in danger of being “uberized,” says economist
Tuesday, 21, Jun
Happy 60th Medicare! A webinar on the origins of Medicare and keeping the dream of universal public health care alive in Canada
Tuesday, 21, Jun
NDP-Liberal agreement an “unprecedented opportunity” for health care: Unifor Conference
Tuesday, 21, Jun
Health Coalition joins 298 groups condemning “outrageous WTO failure”

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