Tag Archives: Health GAP

Groups to Congress: Include $34 Billion for Global Vaccine Production in $3.5 Trillion Budget Plan

“For one one-hundredth of the proposed budget, the U.S. could make and deliver billions of vaccine doses and end this horrific pandemic.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-10-2021

Photo: U.S. Secretary of Defense/flickr

A coalition of global health justice organizations on Monday urged Congress to ensure that the $3.5 trillion budget resolution recently introduced by the Senate Democratic Caucus includes $34 billion in funding to ramp up the worldwide manufacturing of Covid-19 vaccines.

In a letter addressed to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as well as six committee chairs, a half dozen groups—Public Citizen, Health GAP, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, PrEP4All, and RESULTS—called on lawmakers to allocate a tiny fraction of the funding proposed in Democrats’ reconciliation package to accelerate the global vaccination effort and help bring the ongoing coronavirus pandemic to an end. Failing to do so, the groups warned, will only prolong suffering around the globe. Continue reading

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Pressure Campaign Kicks Off in US to Force Big Pharma and Biden to End Vaccine Apartheid

The absence of a WTO patent waiver, say public health advocates, “means we won’t end the pandemic, millions of people will die, and the global economy will suffer.”

By Kenny Stancil, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 4-22-2021

“Pfizer has spent the past year making billions of dollars in profits while people continue to die from Covid-19,” tweeted Health GAP on April 22, 2021. “It’s time to #FreeTheVaccine so the whole world has access to these life-saving vaccines!” (Photo: Twitter screengrab via Health GAP)

As vast global inequalities in access to Covid-19 vaccines exacerbate the ongoing pandemic, a coalition of progressive groups in the U.S. kicked off a week of action Thursday to urge President Joe Biden to support a temporary suspension of patent protections and to pressure pharmaceutical corporations to share technology in order to maximize the worldwide production of life-saving doses.

In the coming days, public health campaigners will gather at the headquarters of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson in an attempt to push the major drugmakers to share relevant technology through the World Health Organization’s Covid-19 Technology Access Pool. Continue reading

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