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Adam H. Johnson Profile picture
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26 Apr, 4 tweets, 2 min read
more shadow boxing. All perfectly fine ideas but note the completely lack of #TRIPSwaiver in the solutions. The op-ed's author, Ashish Jha, is a Senior Advisor at Albright Stonebridge whose clients include Pfizer and the Gates Foundation. Probably should have been disclosed.
international consultancy firms are influence laundromats and should be disclosed in bios imo
"[Abright Stonebridge], which represents Pfizer, specializes in helping large corporations understand and influence international trade policy, including on intellectual property." theintercept.com/2021/03/24/cov…
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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Adam H. Johnson Profile picture
26 Apr
TRIPSwaiver will likely never be approved by leaders in EU/US because it would too radically alter the colonial relations propped up by the WTO, the rush therefore is to mass produce “Hyundai” vaccines for the global poor using the “charity” route
I believe those working on this route believe IP waivers are virtually impossible so why bother but this of course becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and it’s notable they’re almost all funded by IP-above-all-else Bill Gates
It’s more effective PR and diplomacy wise for the US to “donate” vaccines when countries are lit on fire than to do what activists asked for months ago which is waive IP and force US pharmaceuticals to share tech and materials under the threat of cutting off public funding
Read 7 tweets
Adam H. Johnson Profile picture
25 Apr
this is like the sixth column I’ve seen that does this. Morally preen about the urgent need for #TRIPSwaiver only to bring in someone to say ‘yeah well TRIPSwaiver doesnt actually matter’. It’s truly bizarre—if it’s of negligible value then why advocate Biden waste capital on it?
Handwaving the #TRIPSwaiver away or paying it lip service only to say it’s completely superfluous has been the line by all of the IP lobby / GatesWorld. Which makes sense because they can’t oppose it on substance so dismissing it as irrelevant is the only play
But if I’m Goldberg and I just listed off the 100s of groups that support the TRIPS waiver—Nobel laureates, OxFam, HRW, MSF, 160 lawmakers—then turn around and interview someone who says it doesn’t really matter wouldn’t this invite obvious questions? How is this just moved past?
Read 4 tweets
Adam H. Johnson Profile picture
25 Apr
yeah except for the part where she brings on Peter Hotez to completely dismiss the idea and call it pointless and pitch his own low end, less effective alternative that maintains the sanctity of global IP enforcement. Sort of takes the moral wind of the sails of the piece.
the other day Hotez said his vaccine solution for the global south would be a “Hyundai” vaccine vs the American “Lamborghini” vaccines. He deleted the tweet but here is the general idea form someone criticizing his framing.
His project appears to be about racing to build a cheap non mRNA vaccine for the global poor that the US (and likely Gates but as of now we don't know) fund so that this can be the solution without undermining IP enforcement.
Read 6 tweets
Adam H. Johnson Profile picture
24 Apr
100% untrue.

(1) Countries can be punished and fined so long as the WTO patent rules are in place
(2) the popular line from the IP lobby that manufacturing is what’s holding us back is a straw man. Indeed it is but a prerequisite to manufacturing is 1000% lifting IP restrictions
Is @rahaeli under the impression MSF, OxFam, HRW, 400+ progressive groups, dozens of poor countries and 100 democratic lawmakers are suffering from a mass delusion?
The IP lobby loves to insist that the #TRIPSwaiver is a “distraction” or a “side show” so they avoid the messiness of looking like cartoon villains but it’s absolutely not and every health expert not paid by Pharma or Gates who has looked at the IP bottle neck and agrees
Read 4 tweets
Adam H. Johnson Profile picture
24 Apr
Brian Williams, Colbert, CNN all doing lay up segments mocking antivaxx Ron Johnson while going months saying ZERO about Biden ignoring requests from poor countries for a #TRIPSwaiver so they can manufacture generic vaccines is liberalism at it's most useless
Obvious, smug, agnostic to events outside the US, not really wrong but only addressing 10% of the problem. Over 400 progressives groups, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch all have begged for someone to pay attention. Nothing from Biden, barely anything from US media
After months of activists lobbying for coverage and MSNBC completely ignoring it, MSNBC's token not-totally-a-hack Chris Hayes did a 8 min segment on the TRIPS waiver last night at the end of his show. So progress.
Read 7 tweets
Adam H. Johnson Profile picture
24 Apr
at the very least if one is going to act like there was basically a bipartisan media consensus on (1) the war itself being good and (2) at the very least, the basic premises of the war, it's extremely odd to not even h/t the media outlets who absolutely bought neither. For ex:
Oct 2002: a young @jeremyscahill, along with Jacquie Soohen, reports for Democracy Now from Baghdad on an alleged Iraqi nuclear facility. They show it clearly isn't one. Nothing was stopping others from doing this. democracynow.org/2002/10/11/ira…
FAIR Sept 2002: "hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets of London to protest military action against Iraq... yet neither The Washington Post nor the New York Times saw fit to run a full article about the protests" web.archive.org/web/2005020506…
Read 8 tweets

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