Howard Dean’s language is almost exactly what IP enforcement groups and Big Pharma have been arguing for months, point by point. If he’s not technically a lobbyist he sure is acting like one
https://twitter.com/ryangrim/status/1380165912578420742
like they did during the HIV med struggles of the late 90s/early 2000s (and continue to this day still) IP enforcement lobbyists and big Pharma are using not so subtly patronizing and racist arguments that poor countries simply don’t know what’s in their best interests...
They’re arguing that (A) poor countries don’t have the capacity to manufacture these drugs anyway and (B) they’re too stupid to not know they don’t and are wasting time seeking IP waivers. Aside from being EXTREMELY convenient for them, It’s smarmy head-patting racist bullshit
West Wing had a whole episode about why AIDS meds couldn’t be cheaply produced because Africans were too stupid and poor to use wrist watches and they “can’t tell time”. It’s everywhere in internal big Phamra literature, their greed is rationalized by pat colonial caricatures
over a 100 countries are asking for a TRIPS waiver but don’t worry, the deeply conflicted and slick IP world, Pharma lobbyists and Bill Gates are here to tell them they’re all a bunch of hot head dumbasses whose time is better served begging rich countries for COVAX handouts
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