To 'Crush the Virus,' Majority of House Dems Urge Biden to Back Vaccine Patent Waiver

In order to “crush the virus” across the globe, more than half of the House Democratic caucus Tuesday called on President Joe Biden to immediately end U.S. opposition to a proposed Covid-19 vaccine patent waiver at the World Trade Organization.

Led by Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) and signed by 110 House Democrats, the letter (pdf) from the lawmakers states that temporarily suspending elements of the WTO’s Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement is “vital to ensuring sufficient volume of and equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics around the world.”

“Your administration has an incredible opportunity to reverse the damage done by the Trump administration to our nation’s global reputation and restore America’s public health leadership on the world stage.”
—Letter

“The TRIPS waiver is also essential to ensure all global economies, including the United States’ economy, can recover from the pandemic and thrive,” the letter continues. “Simply put, we must make vaccines, testing, and treatments available everywhere if we are going to crush the virus anywhere.”

The House Democrats’ letter to Biden comes just 24 hours before WTO member nations are set to convene Wednesday and Thursday to consider the patent waiver as global coronavirus cases soar to new highs, fueled largely by a devastating explosion of infections in India and other developing countries that have struggled to vaccinate their populations.

Members of the Biden administration are reportedly divided over whether the U.S. should support the waiver. One anonymous administration official involved in the internal discussions told the Washington Post last week that “the people whose job it is to protect the property of U.S. businesses are up in arms that it’s a bad idea.”

“The people whose job is to defeat the pandemic,” the official added, “are much more receptive to it.”

Proponents of the patent waiver—a broad coalition that includes more than 100 countries, former world leaders, Nobel Prize-winning economists, and hundreds of civil society groups—argue that it is a necessary step toward ending pharmaceutical companies’ monopoly control over vaccine production and ramping up manufacturing to meet global needs.

“This temporary TRIPS waiver is key for countries to manufacture necessary supplies of Covid-19 treatments and vaccines,” House Democrats argue in their letter. “The temporary TRIPS waiver would allow countries and manufacturers to directly access and share technologies to produce vaccines and therapeutics without causing trade sanctions or international disputes.”

The pharmaceutical industry has been aggressively lobbying lawmakers in the U.S. and other rich nations to maintain their opposition to the patent waiver, which requires consensus support at the WTO to take effect. As HuffPost reported late Monday, “none of the nine House Democrats among Congress’ top 25 recipients of donations from pharmaceutical industry PACs in the 2020 election cycle have signed” the new letter.

But the letter was signed by an ideologically diverse group of House Democrats, including conservative Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) as well as progressive Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.).

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not signed on to the letter, and zero congressional Republicans have backed the waiver.

“As Covid-19 ravages the globe, we know that any vaccine or therapeutic pharmaceutical corporations develop with public money is 100% ineffective for those that cannot access it,” the letter reads. “We need to make public policy choices, both in the U.S. and at the WTO, that put lives first.”