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Matthew Kavanagh Profile picture
Matthew Kavanagh
@MMKavanagh
Director, Center for Global Health Policy & Politics @georgetown @gtownSOH @oneillinstitute, Prof of global health. Advisor @UNAIDS
Jul 6, 2023 • 12 tweets • 4 min read
Interesting on ethics in #PandemicTreaty. But I'm baffled by @G_Owen_Schaefer @ZekeEmanuel et al take on Intellectual Property. Seems to misunderstand what’s happened in actual pandemics; if dont open monopolies, their other (good) countermasure ideas won't work... a thread. 1/12 They suggest IP is needed for “sustainability” principle & waiving IP = ethical problm b/c “policy makers would then face a tension between short-term human wellbeing, equity, and solidarity, & the long-term sustainability of incentives to respond to future pandemics"True? 2/12
Apr 3, 2023 • 16 tweets • 6 min read
Our NEW @Global_Policy article out as #PandemicAccord negotiators meet: "Vaccine Politics: law & inequality in COVID" shows COVAX failed b/c of a model misaligned with politics.Not $.Not tech.
Same approach,better funded ≠ equity next pandemic
🧵thread onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/author/S… Image I write w/@Renu_Singh_ about why the dominant law&policy paradigm proved incapable of securing equity.
Political analysis necessary to design effective pandemic response.
Greater use of law, inter-state negot, and intl agreements can engage intl & domestic political forces 2/16 Image
Nov 10, 2022 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
HIV treatment as cautionary tale for economists.
1. no excuse. By 2005-7 Oster speaking/writing against treatment, antiretrovirals avail for 8 years.Finally reaching 1 mill ppl in Africa. Deaths long ago dropped in US/Europe (L) finally falling in E/SAfrica. She argues to stop... ImageImage 2. Entire basis for cost-effectiveness calculations based on 2 false ideas. The first was confusing price for cost and not understanding it was subject to govt action. Price=a choice. Generics reverse-engineered & govts used power to import. Cost fell 99% to >$200. Image
Jan 22, 2022 • 15 tweets • 6 min read
Is it “not clear that 'coloniality' is the cause” of COVID19 vaccine inequality? Maybe not for many (helpful article in that sense), let's discuss.
THREAD🧵#decolonizing starting w political economy: $trillions for North's corporate, R&D, university "capacity" has an origin.../1 First: colonialism was a system of resource extraction, slave trade, and global commerce that enriched the global North and has had long-running harm for Southern economies… inequality in resources is not naturally occurring/2
Aug 4, 2021 • 7 tweets • 11 min read
Article out: Legal environ & #pandemic response. After 5yr global #HIV push on testing&treatment, countries that criminalized gay relat, sexwork, drugs had less success. Rights-protective laws, better outcomes
Biomedical & structural interconnected
A🧵/1
gh.bmj.com/content/6/8/e0… Image Measuring legal approaches in world: @HIVPolicyLab data show some countries highly criminalize, some less so (only 20% criminalize all). Meanwhile rights-protective legal approaches: 23% have strong non-discrim, 39% ind. human rights inst., 79% enforceable GBV laws. /2 Image
Jun 21, 2021 • 4 tweets • 3 min read
Dear @JoeBiden @KamalaHarris @SecBlinken @SecBecerra time for you to act. Sharing tech is good public health, it's good diplomacy. NIH-Moderna vax already paid for. It could show the power and relevance of government, US in particular. How about you... 1. Democratize vaccine production. I know you've already said USDFC is investing, take the last steps... and also
foreignpolicy.com/2021/03/01/to-…
Jun 21, 2021 • 21 tweets • 13 min read
#Covax is failing. Big picture: even as delivers doses, it won’t deliver goal of EQUITY.
Short term: By June was to reach just 3% of LMIC pops. Delivered only 1/4 of that (88 of 337m forecast).
We need to talk about why & learn real-world, politically-informed lessons
🧵[thread] The goal: at a high level, COVAX as a pillar of ACT-A aimed to “ensure that every country gets fair and equitable access to eventual #COVID19 vaccines…. By acting as an insurance policy.” At this point, it's clear this model has not been successful /2
Jun 12, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Breaking: South Africa’s vaccine roll out yet again in crisis b/c high-inc-based company failed to deliver vaccines. Millions of JNJ vax may have to be tossed out, so no vax for millions of seniors & vulnerable supposed to be vaccinated 2 wks ago. this has to be addressed... ...this is happening b/c USG-funded production of JNJ vax substance at Emergent which failed quality.
Aspen, the SAfrican company, has NOT gotten tech transfer to make the vax, instead they’re filling and finishing substance from JNJ (from Emergent)😞

nytimes.com/2021/06/11/us/…
Jun 9, 2021 • 8 tweets • 7 min read
@R_H_Ebright @amymaxmen @VanityFair pretty striking to have a once-eminent professor reduced to schoolyard name-calling in defense of problematic journalism... Not sure where that gets you, but ok here's what I read... @R_H_Ebright @amymaxmen @VanityFair Article quotes trump admin official saying it “smelled like a cover-up” (innuendo). Any evidence of a cover-up? None given. Instead, evidence shows pretty clearly what Trump appointees were pushing didn’t pass basic basic scientific rigor so career experts refused advance it.
Jun 4, 2021 • 23 tweets • 8 min read
Read 👇 Dear Journalism:Does this pass muster @VanityFair? Innuendo, implications, Eban teases as breaking story. Zero new evidence. Lots of fmr Trump admin people saying there's a cover up, with no evidence. How is this not just spreading misinformation?
vanityfair.com/news/2021/06/t… YES we need more info on #COVID #Origins. Yes a lab leak is a possibility, but as many have said it has not been high on priority b/c there is quite literally no evidence for it. Eban doesn't find any either. But she does fall for all sorts of canards...
Jun 4, 2021 • 8 tweets • 5 min read
Ahead of UN #HLM2021AIDS we're thrilled to work with partners at @gnpplus @Aidsfonds_intl @UNAIDS to share new policy briefs on urgency of law & policy reform
hivpolicylab.org/hlm2021
Thread on some of what we find👇...

[Stay tuned Monday for a new paper on empirical impacts] Image Criminalization of same-sex relationships, drug use, sex work, and HIV exposure remain wide-spread despite clear evidence and global norms against. New UN targets: reduce the orange and yellow bars to 10%. Lots to do. Image
May 26, 2021 • 9 tweets • 3 min read
Argument that compelling knowledge sharing= theft=no future innovation simply not credible in context of #COVID19. Asks huge leaps of imagination.
1st: the imagination here is that a GLOBAL monopoly is required to incentivize science. India, SAfrica, US must be one monopoly... 2nd: universities, which have done much of research leading to these vaccines, will stop accepting public funds to research vaccines and such. Not credible.
May 25, 2021 • 4 tweets • 2 min read
Take: on list of important things to sort out during this pandemic, the origins (animal vs lab leak) is in the bottom half. It’s predictably getting attention disproportionate to its value, given politics. Need to stop ignoring instrumentalizing of global health Image ... I think @amymaxmen gets the story right here. And it’s not a story mostly about “science”
May 24, 2021 • 4 tweets • 1 min read
breathtaking. declaring population-based distribution of vaccines to low/middle-income countries unethical but ignoring global allocation & WHY they’re getting 3% now;20% of pops vaccinated in 2021 via covax.
No! This is not an ethics frame work... nytimes.com/2021/05/24/opi… How can you consider ethics while ignoring rich countries? Authors treat “nations expecting to have extra doses, including the United States and Britain” as arbiters of ethics as they vaccinate young and heathy people, refuse to share doses or knowledge? No....
May 11, 2021 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
Governments can do multiple things at once on global #COVIDVaccine access. At risk of over-political-scienceing: Need to disntinguish 2 agenda-setting arguments re WTO waiver as "distraction"
-Govts can't do waiver and X (not a real argument)
-Govts might use to distract (fair) We know (takes Baum&Jones off shelf) govts have limited political attention:
Aside: FAR too little focus on political strategy for vaccine equity. I see this as core prob of COVAX. Political agenda occupied by sharing doses (implausible) instead of knowledge to produce.
May 11, 2021 • 14 tweets • 4 min read
Economists please meet the idea of multiple causality. Insufficient supply of vaccines IS driven by WTO rules & IP monopolies. It's not the ONLY cause. We also need tech transfer & funding & more
@ATabarrok gets so many things here wrong…
a quick list🧵
marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolu… “Licenses are widely available” They are not. Most of the world has been dependent on ONE exclusive license to ONE manufacturer, Serum Institute. Many other high-quality firms could be making vaxs but monopoly holders said no. Because of monopoly they can. 2/11
May 10, 2021 • 19 tweets • 6 min read
Richard Epstein says @MadhaviSunder & I are “panglossian” in calling for waiving TRIPS obligations as a piece of vaccine access puzzle. Doing so he provides great summary of baseless arguments against.
Steeped in misinformation and neocolonialism.
Retro to HIV circa 2000...🧵 Image 1: Africans, Asians, LatAmers cant vaccinate:
RE:“Local players—such as doctors, health care officials, pharmacists, transportation officials, & many more—all must be able to efficiently utilize these US technologies for any program to work. Do they have the capacity to do that?" Image
May 6, 2021 • 14 tweets • 6 min read
The #TRIPSWaiver: lots of misunderstanding & mis-information on WTO & law.
A thread on why it's:
-not going to harm innovation
-not radical
- harmful to pretend it is
-not going to touch US pharma patents
-(as we all said) just 1 piece of #CovidVaccine access puzzle
🧵1/14 1)Those arguing TRIPS waiver will undermine the innovation that got us #COVIDVaccines are asking us to believe start-ups (Moderna, BioNTech) and universities (Oxford, UPenn) are going to stop taking public money to develop & trial breakthrough vaccines (!?) or 2/12 Image
Apr 26, 2021 • 15 tweets • 15 min read
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
Apr 23, 2021 • 10 tweets • 5 min read
.@JoeBiden must act on vaccine equity. @MadhaviSunder & I argue today @BLaw voluntary measures & donations won't work. USG needs to use leverage of public funding and IP to compel sharing of technology. WTO agreement was premised on tech transfer...
news.bloomberglaw.com/us-law-week/bi… The US is now vaccinating everyone under 16 while older people & frontline health workers in much of the world have no access.
This is bad public health.
Deeply unjust.
And economically damaging @SecYellen said /2
washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021…
Nov 25, 2020 • 7 tweets • 4 min read
Calling on @USATODAY to withdraw/correct this piece. Says @SSWorks claim taxpayers paid 100% of Moderna vaccine is Partly False. But (w/respect) you misunderstood research funding, universities & drug discovery.
here's why🧵
@MMStewartNews @nicole_carroll
usatoday.com/story/news/fac… ....@USATODAY says it's false because "the vaccine was funded by a combination of government spending, private donations and research grants" and that "$2.5 billion was given for the development of the company's vaccine and to purchase doses" not for research. Nope 🙅.../2