[CTC] 1, 000-plus Medical Professionals Urge President Biden To Increase Global COVID Vaccine, Treatment Production

[Arthur Stamoulis]

Thank you to everyone who helped collect signatures on the medical professionals sign-on letter.  It just went into the White House with over 1000 signers.  It’s already generated initial coverage already in the Washington Post <http://ow.ly/xjNI50HVASf> — which included a response from the administration that they remain “deeply engaged” on a WTO outcome on “vaccines.”  —Arthur

Please help amplify the letter on Twitter <https://twitter.com/TradeJusticeEd/status/1493603467956559875> and Facebook <https://www.facebook.com/TradeJusticeEd/posts/438335381305408>.

Facebook shareable <https://www.facebook.com/TradeJusticeEd/posts/438335381305408>
Twitter shareable <https://twitter.com/TradeJusticeEd/status/1493603467956559875>

Letter link <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tradejusticeedfundorg.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/medicalprofessionalcovidletter_021522.pdf__;!!M9LbjjnYNg9jBDflsQ!Sm_0PYUcI7S0_uvKW-PCpvUcuw9xLKQo48Wi5JQwUXpksyU-Yj6VX4cE5k73qbb7CFkz4A$>

1,000-plus Medical Professionals Urge President Biden To Increase Global COVID Vaccine, Treatment Production
Doctors, Nurses Call for Ending Pharma Monopolies on COVID Vaccines, Diagnostics & Treatments
For Immediate Release:
Feb. 15, 2022
 
Contact: Mike Stankiewicz, mike at tradejusticeedfund.org <mailto:mike at tradejusticeedfund.org>, (202) 255-7472
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Joe Biden should use his existing authority to bulk up COVID vaccine and treatment production abroad, over 1,000 doctors, nurses and medical students said today in a letter <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https:/tradejusticeedfundorg.files.wordpress.com/2022/02/medicalprofessionalcovidletter_021522.pdf__;!!M9LbjjnYNg9jBDflsQ!Sm_0PYUcI7S0_uvKW-PCpvUcuw9xLKQo48Wi5JQwUXpksyU-Yj6VX4cE5k73qbb7CFkz4A$> to the White House. 
“As we head into the third year of the pandemic, there’s still no concrete plan to vaccinate the world,” said Arthur Stamoulis, executive director of the Trade Justice Education Fund, which led the letter effort. “Ensuring there are enough vaccines, diagnostics and treatments for everyone globally is the only way to save lives and break the cycle of additional COVID variants that prolong the pandemic everywhere. Achieving that goal will require strong leadership from the U.S.” 
The recommendations in the letter mirror those of the “End the Pandemic Now” plan, which has also been introduced in Congress, and ask the White House to: secure a comprehensive World Trade Organization (WTO) TRIPS waiver of monopoly rules standing in the way of increased vaccine, treatment and test kit production; mandate vaccine producers share their recipes and know-how with qualified producers; and fund vaccine production hubs around the world. The plan would allow vaccine producers abroad to produce their own doses and vaccinate their populations more quickly. Currently only about 10% of people in low-income countries have received even one COVID vaccine dose. 
The letter comes ahead of the WTO’s end of February deadline for a TRIPS waiver decision, and the body’s Feb. 22–24 general council meeting. President Biden has also pledged to vaccinate 70% of the world by the end of 2022. 
“We are nurses, doctors, emergency medical technicians, medical students and others across a range of healthcare professions who have witnessed first-hand the devastating effects of COVID-19,” the letter reads. “As we continue doing all in our power to bring an end to this deadly pandemic, we ask that you please do the same by using the full power of the presidency to get vaccines, diagnostic tools and therapeutics to everyone who needs them around the globe.”
“The COVID pandemic knows no boundaries yet, to date, global vaccine equity has been tragically poor,” said Monica Gandhi, a professor and director of the Center for AIDS Research at University of California San Francisco Campus (UCSF) and Baleem Ghali, assistant professor of hospital medicine and critical care at UCSF. “We stand in solidarity with our colleagues worldwide who have had limited access to tools to fight the pandemic. We should be pursuing all avenues to ensure equitable access to COVID vaccines and therapeutics, including expanding manufacturing, waiving of patents, and donations.”
“Just like other illnesses our doctors and nurses treat every day, preventing COVID through vaccination is critical in order to save lives – especially in low-resource settings where health care is often scarce,” said Rita Kreynin, policy officer at Doctors Without Borders. “Despite what pharma companies want us to believe, we don’t have to rely on them for our COVID vaccine supply. There are other companies out there that stand ready to help if the mRNA recipe is shared, but Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech aren’t actively sharing this information – so the Biden Administration should demand they do so.”
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The Trade Justice Education Fund <https://tradejusticeedfund.org/> conducts public education programs to increase awareness of how trade policies affect workers’ rights, the environment and public health.
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