Healthcare inequity: How Big Pharma and Western Governments betrayed countries of the Global South

Healthcare inequity: How Big Pharma and Western Governments betrayed countries of the Global South

    Thursday, September 07, 2023   No comments

First, it was Western governments that prioritized the vaccination of people in Europe over the need to protect the most vulnerable. For two years, EU governments either banned the export of covid vaccines outside the bloc or pressured companies to prioritize orders coming from Europe, even after many people in Europe were vaccinated, not just once, but twice.

Now, it is the turn of big pharma; companies that are headquartered in the West and protected by western governments, have been bullying African governments to sign deals for the supply of vaccines at higher prices.

It is now reported that Pharmaceutical giant Janssen/Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and generic manufacturer Serum Institute of India (SII) charged the South African government more than the European Union for COVID-19 vaccines – and South Africa assumed all the risk in ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ contracts with Pfizer, J&J and SII.

 

This is according to an analysis of the contracts led by Health Justice Initiative (HJI), a South African NGO that won a court challenge last month to get access to all South Africa’s COVID-19 vaccine contracts.

 

J&J charged South Africa $10 a dose, 15% more than the company charged the European Union (EU), and the government was required to pay a non-refundable down payment of $27.5 million.

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Internet, Space, Politics, and War: How Western government-business collaborations and connections is spurring other countries to develop their own

Internet, Space, Politics, and War: How Western government-business collaborations and connections is spurring other countries to develop their own

    Friday, January 13, 2023   No comments

The US administration has used connections between private businesses in China and the Chinese government as a reason for banning Chinese companies from operating within the country. They argued that data collected by these businesses may end up in the hands of foreign governments. When some European governments joined the US government and put restrictions or bans on China-based businesses, it made this problem a global one. At the same time, it brought to the forefront the relationship between the private sector and governments. The media coverage may suggest that the problem with governmental use of data, information, or technology owned by businesses applies only to businesses operating out of China, implying that Western governments do not use tools from businesses or collaborate with businesses to achieve national political and economic advantages. The Recent and ongoing events around the world, however, are confirming that there is not a divide between private and government entities. All governments end up leaning on companies and businesses operating from their territory to use their resources and assets to protect and further what they see as their national interest. The connections and relations between business-government was revealed clearly during the pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

During the pandemic, drug companies received government funds to develop vaccines and anti-viral drugs. And that private-government partnership extended to the control of the production and distribution of drugs according to government priorities, not market forces or public good conditions. For example, EU governments prohibited European vaccine makers from selling their products outside Europe to prioritize the vaccination of Europeans over the rest of the world.

Also, with the start of the war in Ukraine, US-based social media, Internet companies, and media outlets all fell in line with policies and guidelines developed by Western governments to control the narrative about the war, which consisted of filtering out any coverage or information that may appear to be sympathetic to the Russian point of view.

Also, with the start of the war in Ukraine in February 2022, the then-richest person on earth and the majority owner of SpaceX, the company behind the Starlink project which deliverers high-speed internet from space, Elon Musk, announced that he will allow the government of Ukraine to use the service. Similarly, when demonstrations broke out in Iran the fall of 2022, Musk told Iranians that he will make Starlink services available to the anti-government protesters.

With China facing similar pressure related to its claim over Taiwan, the ban on Chinese technology companies and the willingness of US-based companies to support US positions on global conflicts, it was not hard for the Chinese leaders to build or strengthen alternative to US- and EU-based companies so that they cannot be used against them the way they have been used against Russia and Iran. We also anticipate Russia and Iran to allocate resources to developing similar structures to address these issues. The recent revelation about the emergence of a Chinese competitor to Starlink and SpaceX bolster this conclusion. The media coverage, blow, should provide more context.

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The origins of covid-19: An appeal for an objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2

The origins of covid-19: An appeal for an objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2

    Saturday, September 17, 2022   No comments

The scientific community is now unconvinced of the natural path of covid19 (from nature to human) and, for the first time, signal that that a research path is a possibility. This shift brings to focus the danger of biological and chemical weapons that many states continue to engage in.

This scientific shift was amplified recently by a new report from the prestigious British scientific journal, The Lancet. Here is quote from the report bout this significant development:

 

A research-related origin is plausible. Two questions need to be addressed: virus evolution and introduction into the human population. Since July, 2020, several peer-reviewed scientific papers have discussed the likelihood of a research-related origin of the virus. Some unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome sequence suggest that they may have resulted from genetic engineering,

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 an approach widely used in some virology labs.

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 Alternatively, adaptation to humans might result from undirected laboratory selection during serial passage in cell cultures or laboratory animals,

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 including humanised mice.

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 Mice genetically modified to display the human receptor for entry of SARS-CoV-2 (ACE2) were used in research projects funded before the pandemic, to test the infectivity of different virus strains.

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 Laboratory research also includes more targeted approaches such as gain-of-function experiments relying on chimeric viruses to test their potential to cross species barriers.

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A research-related contamination could result from contact with a natural virus during field collection, transportation from the field to a laboratory,

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 characterisation of bats and bat viruses in a laboratory, or from a non-natural virus modified in a laboratory. There are well-documented cases of pathogen escapes from laboratories.

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 Field collection, field survey, and in-laboratory research on potential pandemic pathogens require high-safety protections and a strong and transparent safety culture. However, experiments on SARS-related coronaviruses are routinely performed at biosafety level 2,

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 which complies with the recommendations for viruses infecting non-human animals, but is inappropriate for experiments that might produce human-adapted viruses by effects of selection or oriented mutations.

Overwhelming evidence for either a zoonotic or research-related origin is lacking: the jury is still out. On the basis of the current scientific literature, complemented by our own analyses of coronavirus genomes and proteins,

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 we hold that there is currently no compelling evidence to choose between a natural origin (ie, a virus that has evolved and been transmitted to humans solely via contact with wild or farmed animals) and a research-related origin (which might have occurred at sampling sites, during transportation or within the laboratory, and might have involved natural, selected, or engineered viruses).

 Read more from the source... An appeal for an objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2

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