From the beginning of the pandemic, the EU, UK & other rich governments have been blocking & delaying wider vaccine production globally by obstructing the #TRIPSwaiver, a proposal to temporarily waive some intellectual property rules on vaccines & other health products.

Why?
The EU (led by Germany in this) has produced misinformation & outright lies to defend their deadly policy.

These arguments have been debunked comprehensively:

Again & again:

For a long time:
From the beginning, the EU, UK & others have been ignoring the request of the majority of countries in the world, as well as the advice of public health professionals and medical experts.
Indeed, the #TRIPSwaiver is supported by:

100+ governments: reliefweb.int/report/world/o…

Past presidents & prime ministers and Nobel laureates: project-syndicate.org/commentary/pre…

NGO experts calling for a #PeoplesVaccine: peoplesvaccine.org
The #TRIPSwaiver is also supported by:

Medical experts: thelancet.com/journals/lance…

The head of the World Health Organization: theguardian.com/world/2021/mar…

Hundreds of European lawmakers: hrw.org/news/2021/04/2…

Also:

US lawmakers: thehill.com/policy/healthc…
But the EU arrogantly pretend to know better than all these global voices & all these health experts.

The European Commission is so arrogant that it refuses to even listen to them, meeting almost exclusively with the pharma companies & their lobbyists.
corporateeurope.org/en/2021/05/com…
It's hard to understand the mentality of political leaders who look at a global pandemic in which millions are dying and say:

"How can we help our friends make money from this?"

Yet that's the leaders we have in the EU, UK & a few other places right now.
Even the stark reality that their profits-first approach is so obviously failing won't shift them from their ideology of greed.

💥 Only 12% of the world is vaccinated.

💥 At this rate, it will take years - decades, in fact - to reach everyone.

oxfam.org/en/press-relea…
Our leaders try to convince citizens that the slow pace of global vaccinations doesn't matter - that only vaccinations at home matter - as if humanity is not connected.

It's a deadly lie.

➡️ Grotesquely unfair to the global south.

➡️ Self-destructive for the global north.
The inequality is obvious:

🔸 85% of shots that have gone into arms worldwide have been administered in high- and upper-middle-income countries.

🔸 0.3% of doses have been administered in low-income countries.
nytimes.com/interactive/20…
The self-destructive nature of EU & UK policy is also obvious.

By helping pharma companies limit vaccine production, our leaders are giving the virus more time to produce new variants that could be:

☠️ More deadly.

☠️ More contagious.

☠️ Resistant to current vaccines.
The longer the pandemic, the more chance for the emergence of new variants...

Public health experts have been warning about it: oxfam.org/en/press-relea…

Pharmaceutical companies are "betting" on it: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
There's some evidence that the efficacy of vaccines may already be falling: reuters.com/world/middle-e…

(Still, get vaccinated if you can. Sadly, most people don't have access to vaccines.)
Pharma companies make no secret of the likely need for 3rd shot boosters and new recipes to address new variants: cnbc.com/2021/04/15/pfi…
As long as pharma monopolies control the level of vaccine production, they will do so in their own interest, and this is where we will be, all with the support of the EU, the UK & others:

⚠️ Serial profits for the pharma monopolies.

⚠️ Endless pandemic for humanity.
If you're thinking that this all sounds a bit like a neocolonialist approach, you're not alone.

And there's a thread for that:

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More from @astroehlein

17 Jul
Two things EVERYONE should do:

1⃣ Get vaccinated if you can.

2⃣ Ask why most people cannot. Image
Our current global vaccine shortage is not "natural" or "inevitable".

It is the result of a POLICY DECISION by leaders in some rich countries - the EU, UK, Norway, Switzerland & others - to allow pharma monopolies to control the production levels of vaccines.
Specifically, the EU, UK & others have a policy of blocking wider vaccine production globally by obstructing the #TRIPSwaiver, a proposal at the World Trade Organization to temporarily waive some intellectual property rules on vaccines & other health products.
Read 21 tweets
16 Jul
Frontex, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, has failed to protect the rights of people at EU borders, a European Parliament investigation has found.

This aligns with Human Rights Watch's research documenting Frontex's failings.
hrw.org/news/2021/07/1… Image
The new report highlights how Frontex – in particular its executive director, Fabrice Leggeri – failed to take action to address reports of migrant pushbacks, the illegal practice of summarily forcing migrants to return across a border they've recently crossed or sought to cross.
Pushbacks by national border guards have occurred in countries such as Croatia, Greece, and Hungary, where Frontex has had major operations.

The report was also critical of the agency's management board, EU member states, and the European Commission.
Read 5 tweets
15 Jul
The flooding in Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands is just awful.

Dozens of lives lost already, and the rain - after weeks of wet weather - just keeps falling...

(photo @LCI) Image
"The extent of flooding in Pepinster, eastern Belgium, is unprecedented..."
Authorities in the Belgian city of Liège call for evacuation of neighborhoods along the river...
rtbf.be/info/societe/d… Image
Read 9 tweets
15 Jul
I'm beginning to think that the traits that evolve over millions of years to produce an intelligent species that dominates a planet, are the same traits that make that species incapable of managing that planet successfully.
Extreme greed for your tribal group, your family & yourself may be just what's needed for hunter-gatherers to survive, thrive and spread across a planet, but it's a recipe for disaster when its impacts are global.
A predisposition to greed that once was useful, is now maladaptive, but we're stuck with it. The in-built inclination to think selfishly, locally & tribally makes common solutions requiring global cooperation and solidarity difficult, maybe impossible.
Read 6 tweets
14 Jul
If you listened to the Twitter Space just now and would like to engage more on the racist and neocolonialist aspect to rich countries' vaccine policies, here's a thread...
That western leaders can get away with their deadly policy of throttling vaccine production globally is surely dependent on having societies deeply indoctrinated with white-supremacist thinking.
The mass suffering & death of people elsewhere can only be considered an "acceptable" part of policy if they are considered less than fully human. If western publics saw people in low-income countries as equals, our leaders could never get away with what they're doing right now.
Read 4 tweets
14 Jul
The new restrictions that Macron has announced in France are concerning.

We need to fight the pandemic, of course, and that means protective measures will be needed. However, some of the new proposals go too far.

🧵 A thread...

theguardian.com/world/2021/jul…
There are a number of points in Macron's plans related to Covid passes that are worrying - I'll get to that in a bit - but let's focus first on what is perhaps the most troubling part of the whole thing: rolling back on testing to "encourage vaccination". This is a terrible idea.
⚠️ Knowing your status, even when vaccinated, is critical for individual health.

⚠️ Knowing case positivity rates is necessary to understand if and how vaccines are working, and critical for public health.

✅ Testing should remain free, accessible, and prioritized.
Read 33 tweets

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