What Next TBD: The Monkeypox Vaccine Monopoly

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Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 7 August 2022

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

It makes intuitive sense for companies that develop a technology to hold its intellectual property rights. But in the case of vaccines and medical treatments, IP laws slow down manufacturing and distribution and give private companies the power to make huge decisions that affect public health globally. Guest: Zain Rizvi, researcher for advocacy group Public Citizen, specializing in pharmaceutical innovation and access to medicine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It's hard not to feel a sense of dread about monkeypox.
0:09.6	The US has declared a public health emergency to deal with outbreaks.
0:13.3	The World Health Organization had already said it was a global emergency.
0:17.5	But reality check.
0:19.3	This is not March 2020.
0:21.4	Monkeypox is generally not as deadly as COVID, though the pain can be debilitating.
0:26.6	And this is not a new disease.
0:28.1	There is a vaccine.
0:29.6	It was originally developed for smallpox, but it works.
0:32.9	The bad news?
0:33.9	It's hard to get.
0:35.5	In many big US cities, finding the two coveted doses is a struggle.
0:39.7	A line stretching city block after block.
0:42.6	Hundreds waited hoping to get a dose of the monkeypox vaccine.
0:46.0	San Francisco is trying to keep up with a low supply met with very high demand.
0:50.9	A lot of things went wrong here.
0:52.8	The US previously let millions of doses in the National Stockpile expire.
0:57.7	They also bought vaccine in bulk, but must wait months for those doses to actually be bottled.
1:04.4	So now the US isn't expected to get an additional shipment until October.
1:09.6	But consider us lucky.
1:11.3	The entire continent of Africa where this wave of monkeypox began and has existed for years
1:17.8	doesn't have a single dose.
	...

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