We need a People's Vaccine

Short answer: A People’s Vaccine is a vaccine for all people, no matter where you live or how much money you have.

The best hope we have to truly putting an end to the COVID-19 pandemic is making all COVID-19 vaccines free and available to every single person on this planet. Scientists around the world worked so hard to produce safe and effective vaccines that can protect us from infection. Taxpayers like you and me invested millions of dollars to make this happen. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but the pandemic is not over yet. We all must work together globally to demand the vaccine be for the people – one that is patent-free, distributed fairly and made available to all people, in all countries, free of charge.

Short answer: pharma companies and our governments.

Scientist have done their part; they delivered a number of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines. We the taxpayers did our part by funding some of the research. Now policy makers and corporate executives must do their part to make these vaccines accessible to everyone, everywhere.

Lifesaving vaccines, tests, and treatments shouldn’t be auctioned off to the highest bidder, we must ensure that corporations are putting people over profits.

Oxfam is calling on US pharma companies – including Johnson & Johnson, Moderna, and Pfizer – to be transparent, collaborative, and fair in developing and producing COVID-19 vaccines that will keep us healthy and end the pandemic.  This means they should allow for worldwide, low-cost production to meet the unprecedented demand by forgoing monopoly control over the COVID-19 coronavirus vaccines and treatments they are developing with our taxpayer dollars. Oxfam is also calling on companies to support fair global distribution of the vaccines, with those who are at most risk and in most need receiving the vaccines first.

Oxfam has been advocating for fair pharmaceutical prices and patent laws that can benefit poor people for decades. Now, as the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting the poorest people the hardest, there is a danger that lack of access to an affordable vaccine will widen the inequality gaps between rich and poor—both in the US and around the world. This could set back the fight against the injustice of poverty and inequality by decades.

As taxpayers, we’ve already paid for a good deal of the front-end research and development. What we need now is for the pharma companies to be transparent about the true costs it takes to produce the vaccines they are developing, and then for the companies to sell them as close to true cost as possible. They should not set the vaccine price to benefit their shareholders and CEOs at the expense of our health.  This will also allow governments and health agencies to cover this cost and then deliver the vaccines, free of charge to the public in both rich and poor countries.

Politics has no place in the process to approve the safety and effectiveness of the COVID-19 vaccines. Scientists—not politicians—should be empowered to determine which vaccines to approve. And the FDA should not approve any vaccine for use that has not been conclusively demonstrated to be safe and effective.

It’s essential that the People’s Vaccine be available to all people, especially those who are most vulnerable and bearing the highest burden of the pandemic. In the United States there is widespread discrimination against Black, Indigenous, and other People of Color in the health care system, and many do not trust the very health institutions on which we rely to develop and distribute a vaccine for COVID-19.

There is good reason for this lack of trust: A history of unethical medical experiments on Black people, exclusion and discrimination based on race and ethnicity, and ongoing inadequate health outcomes at high cost are common for many Black and historically marginalized groups. This makes Black, Indigenous, and People of Color in poor health more vulnerable to COVID-19 because the health care system has failed them (as well as other factors such as where they live and work).

The development and roll out of a coronavirus vaccine needs to reflect this reality and resulting lack of trust: Vaccine trials participants should only be involved with their full consent, and governments and institutions responsible for distributing the vaccine must build trust and ensure affordable, equitable access for the most vulnerable people. Creating and distributing the People’s Vaccine should be part of an effort to redefine how health care works, making it more accessible for the people who are most vulnerable to coronavirus and other deadly diseases.