Thread by @MMKavanagh

How much longer 'til we remove barriers to LMIC vax produc? Argument against: might slow down HIC production? Given inequity @POTUS has to see now the urgency.
Quick 🧵 what I and others have written. If we'd seen action, might be factories running today.
No more delays.../1

July 2020: @CyrilRamaphosa & heads of state + world leaders called for open sharing of vaccine science for global production. We've seen that companies like @moderna_tx @BioNTech_Group @pfizer have set up whole new factories in 3-6 months.
Imagine if we'd started last year... /2

Jan 29, just days after @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris inaugurated, @realtahiramin wrote in @ForeignAffairs about The Folly of Hoarding Knowledge.
Imagine if we'd started then? /3
foreignaffairs.com/articles/world…

Feb 5: @udnore @mplngr and I wrote in @ThinkGlobalHlth how The United States Needs a New Approach to Fight Pandemics in a New Era including sharing technologies.
Imagine if we'd shared tech then? /4 thinkglobalhealth.org/article/united…

March 1st we wrote in @ForeignPolicy that to democratize vaccine access we needed to democratize production.
If we'd shared tech then we could be nearly 2 months into starting production /5
@mplngr @Renu_Singh_ @kfginsbach
foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/01/to-…

March 10, @MadhaviSunder and I wrote in @washingtonpost about the urgency of passing a temporary waiver on enforcement patents and pairing that with tech transfer to enable widespread vaccine prodction.
@POTUS could have shifted US policy that week.../6
washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…

March 17: from the global CROI conference, over 1,000 scientists, lawyers, and public health experts in infectious disease called on @potus to share vaccine science with LMICs. @CarlosdelRio7 @gregggonsalves @_HassanF and I shared the letter @bmj_latest/7
blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/03/17…

April 8 in @NEJM @IngridKatzMD @LindaGailBekker @RWeintraubMD Allan M. Brandt wrote about the need for the US government to act boldly, waive patents, do tech transfer, and fund widespread vaccination.
What if April had been the month for a bold effort?/8
nejm.org/doi/full/10.10…

Oh I meant to include Feb 23: @_HassanF wrote in @ForeignPolicy about the rapidly developing Vaccine Apartheid. This is widely read around DC.
What if the call from South Africa had changed the game? /9
foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/23/don…

Apr 20th: @MazzucatoM @Jayati1609 @ElsTorreele reminded us yet again in @TheEconomist that "innovation is futile unless the vaccines are distributed equitably"
That would have been a good day for the US to announce new plan to share the tech /10
economist.com/by-invitation/…

Friday @MadhaviSunder and I wrote in @BLaw calling on @POTUS to immediately right this remarkable and damaging wrong and bring together: waiving IP + real tech transfer + funding
to achieve vaccine equity in 2021.
Will we see action this week?/11

https://twitter.com/MMKavanagh/status/1385597734271569926?s=20

Industry bringing increasingly absurd arguments. The most compelling one seemed to be that if we shared the tech and there were other producers, it might slow production in HICs. 1)still have seen zero evidence; 2)HIC producers wont share with LMICs.
So, not a real argument./12

Now the most recent argument seems to be that if we share technology than producers in India, China, and Russia might use it to make life-saving products?
Breathtaking... /12

https://twitter.com/JoseRTrigueros2/status/1386363345884704770?s=20

1 Year ago: we wrote how distinct but similar forces as in HIV were denying access in #COVID19 and would for vaccines without action. @udnore @WALETOM @VictorDzau @allyeko @MalecheAllan @IfyAniebo @umunyana_rugege @CharlesBHolmes @LawrenceGostin /12

https://twitter.com/udnore/status/1386687912742371329?s=20

Now #COVID19 surging & taking thousands of lives, increasingly in LMICs. not just India but look: Nepal. Colombia. Worrying in Malaysia. In Botswana and Namibia.
As @DrTedros has said, there's no 1 solution
Share the tech, share the doses
What is US government waiting for? /fin