Thread by @DrEricDing

📍NEW—We now know why US cannot share its #COVID19 vaccines with the world—Trump WH had forced legal contracts that blocks US doses by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, J&J from being donated. Hence 🇨🇦&🇲🇽 only got “loans”, despite >45 mil dose US surplus. 🧵
vanityfair.com/news/2021/04/w…

2) “The contracts the Trump administration signed with the vaccine manufacturers prohibit the U.S. from sharing its surplus doses with the rest of the world. According to contract language VF has obtained, the agreements with Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, & Janssen state:

3) ““The Government may not use, or authorize the use of, any products or materials provided under this Project Agreement, unless such use occurs in the United States” or U.S. territories.

4) “The clauses in question are designed to ensure that the manufacturers retain liability protection, but they have had the effect of projecting the Trump administration’s America First agenda into the Biden era.

5) ““That is what has completely and totally prohibited the U.S. from donating or reselling, because it would be in breach of contract. It is a complete and total ban. Those legal parameters must change before we do anything to help the rest of the world.”

6) “In a statement to Vanity Fair, a Defense Department spokesperson acknowledged the contract restrictions, saying: “DoD did attempt to negotiate terms that would allow the use of vaccine doses outside the U.S., but in some cases, the vaccine manufacturers refused.”

7) a small request to @POTUS Biden & @WHCOS:

📌Please consider modifying the contracts with vaccine makers to allow US to donate its excess vaccines to the world.

8) “The impasse is especially frustrating because the Biden team’s global ambitions go beyond donating money or surplus vaccines. [Biden WH] is quietly considering plans to have the U.S. serve as a major manufacturer of affordable, high-quality COVID vaccines for the entire world

9) “The effort began in plain sight on March 2, when the administration announced that, under the Defense Production Act, Merck would repurpose two of its U.S. manufacturing plants to begin producing the Johnson & Johnson vaccine.

10) “The partnership, pairing two traditional rivals, could yield as many as one billion doses a year.
The immediate goal was to “vastly increase” America’s supply, but the extra doses could also be used to supply the world, said a senior Biden official:

11) “Just connect the dots. There’s a real ability for the U.S. to become a major supplier” of COVID vaccines.”

12) My take—what I’m reading here is—the new additional doses added via DPA production by the Biden WH likely aren’t restricted by the Trump WH’s ban on overseas use. (Hence maybe it’s faster way than renegotiating contracts). But those new batch of doses are likely coming later.

13) so was Trump WH at fault? Yes, says experts. “Experts say the Trump administration—which, after all, was in the position of doling out billions of dollars in development funds—was not required by any law to roll over for the vaccine makers.”...

14) Sam Halabi said the U.S. had been in “a very good position to call the manufacturers’ bluff: ‘if you want the billions in procurement dollars then we want the flexibility to send’” doses overseas.

15) “But U.S. negotiators likely “didn’t have any interest in sharing outside of U.S. territory.” (TRANSLATION: Trump admin negotiators likely had no interest in helping other countries)

16) Is the US currently in a surplus situation? Yes, we already have >45 million currently available doses (notice how it’s rising) and hundreds of millions more doses on order in excess of US population need.

(HT to whoever made this graph)

17) “The result of Operation Warp Speed’s acquiescence is yet another manifestation of Trump’s nativist, “America First” agenda. The contracts, said one Biden health adviser, reflect the “whole ethos” of the Trump administration.”

➡️ “America first” basically = let others die.

18) maybe another idea is to authorize sharing of US surplus vaccines at US embassies and military bases abroad that are under US sovereign control.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1379792486147690496

19) And there is precedence for the US Embassy vaccination approach for use abroad.

We should expand it.

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1379799166868717569

20) We urgently need to send vaccines to also Latin America where, besides Chile, there is an extreme lack of enough vaccines. Especially Brazil 🇧🇷 and Mexico 🇲🇽

https://twitter.com/drericding/status/1379771787416907776