Thread by @mellabarb

It's wild and bad that Biontech tried to get public mentions of #CTAP, a @WHO housed initiative to pool intellectual property, scrapped as "vaccine misinformation".

This is not the pharma's first bizarre anti-generics campaign. A quick bit of history.🧵1/

https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615013698267148289

https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1615008625575202818

My 'favourite' absurd anti-generics lobbying story is the time PhRMA commissioned a novel about why generic medicines were bad.

It never was published because even the paid ghostwriters wouldn't take it as far as PhRMA wanted.

I wrote abt it here ⬇️2/

https://twitter.com/mellabarb/status/1487199600754712577

The authors re-wrote a less terrible version, and PhRMA freaked out that it might be published / tried to get a court order to recall all copies.

The attention to detail is extreme, including getting CNN to get Larry King to recall a cover blurb. 3/
huffpost.com/entry/phrma-co…

During the early years of the HIV epidemic, it wasn't just censoring tweets about WHO initiatives. WHO officials themselves had very real reasons to believe that their lives were at risk. 4/

theguardian.com/world/2001/aug…

If you ever apply for a job with WHO, there's an odd checkbox where you confirm that not only do you not have tobacco COIs, but you don't even smoke yourself.

That may seem a little extra, until you read abt the scale of the campaign against FCTC. 5/
reuters.com/investigates/s…

Lobbying is (unfortunately) good value for money. Pharma spent a half billion in the last 2 years lobbying Congress. Key aims were blocking drug pricing reform and the #TRIPSWaiver.

But it's small change when you understand the money to be made here. 6/
opensecrets.org/industries/lob…

Close pharma ally Orrin Hatch kept busy using his power in Congress to threaten folks trying to expand generic access to medicines.

This included, among other things, threats to the Global Fund abt generics use / IP issues: 7/
ip-watch.org/2013/02/12/let…

statnews.com/2018/01/02/sen…

Another Hatch-related episode: the Senate Finance committee threatened Colombia over a potential compulsory license on a cancer medicine.

Among other things, funding for the *checks notes* peace process was threatened. 8/

theintercept.com/2016/05/14/lea…

South Africa has been working to reform their patent laws (fixthepatentlaws.org). PhRMA underwrote a campaign to astroturf opposition and delay (or block) much-needed reforms. Here were some of their aims ⬇️ 9/

mg.co.za/article/2014-0…

keionline.org/22398

What I think folks have a hard time understanding is the attention to detail. The above were all major generics initiatives, so you understand the opposition.

But there's a remarkable (horrifying) attention to detail in that even small fish in this space (hi!) feel pressure.

I was fresh out of school, w/a little baby abstract in a minor conference when I was contacted by a press officer & informed a pharma company was angry at (publicly available) drug prices that were part of my study, & I was at risk of a libel lawsuit if I didn't change them. 10/

Pharma (this time IFPMA, pharma's int'l counterpart) paid more money to a consultancy to write a piece about why my research is bad than I have ever been paid to *actually do* my research.

This is a matter of public record.
ohe.org/publications/2… 11/