MPs debate equitable vaccine access in Westminster
On Thursday, dozens of MPs joined a Westminster Hall debate on how to ensure equitable, global vaccine access. Organised by allies at Results UK and Liberal Democrat MP Wendy Chamberlain, hundreds of Just Treatment supporters had emailed their MPs in the run up to the debate, encouraging them to attend and speak out on the growing injustice of global vaccine apartheid.
Debates like this give MPs an opportunity to speak out on an issue that they feel passionately about and receive a reply directly from a government minister. These debates help to keep an issue live, to demonstrate the strength of feeling on a particular topic and to put the government on the spot.
There were some really strong contributions from MPs across the political spectrum on the need to vaccinate the world, including on the need to break big pharma’s deadly COVID monopolies by agreeing a waiver on COVID monopolies (the TRIPS waiver) which would allow manufacturers around the world to make big pharma’s COVID vaccines and treatments. Here are a selection of quotes from across the political parties:
Conservative MP Harriet Baldwin: “it has never been so obvious to everyone in this country that by helping others around the world, we help ourselves.”
Labour MP John McDonnell: “Corporate philanthropy is not going to solve this crisis. We cannot sit back and hope that the pharmaceutical giants will do the right thing; to do so is a death sentence for millions of our fellow human beings [...] the UK has disgraced itself by voting to block the temporary TRIPS waiver that would put human life above private profit.”
SDLP MP Claire Hanna: “The TRIPS waiver, as others have made clear, is an absolute no brainer.”
SNP MP Dr Phillippa Whitford: “It is important to recognise that most of the leading covid-19 vaccines have been developed with public funding, either from university settings, which are largely publicly funded, or through the huge injection of funding made by the UK, US and EU governments, and others. We touched on polio. The fact is that Salk did not patent his vaccine, Alexander Fleming did not patent penicillin and Röntgen did not patent X-rays, because they saw them as part of the global good.”
In response, government minister Vicky Ford repeated the government’s opposition to the TRIPs waiver, claimed that waiving intellectual property on COVID vaccines, tests and treatments would disincentivise future medical innovation - an argument that has been disproven time and again, and which Wendy Chamberlain called out at the end, asking why, in that case, over 130 countries now supported the TRIPs waiver.
Thanks to the efforts of Just Treatment supporters and our allies in the Missing Medicines alliance, this debate has shown how MPs across the political spectrum are united in the need to break pharma company monopolies and bring an end to the immoral and dangerous vaccine apartheid. It also highlighted the government’s eagerness to continue to protect big pharma’s profits over people’s health - we must ramp up the pressure on them to do the right thing.