Don’t miss this fantastic piece by Michael Caron McGuill in WBUR’s Cognoscenti on what we can learn from ACT UP’s history, and why we need a free vaccine. McGuill writes:
One campaign fighting for global access and a free vaccine, Free the Vaccine, represents 29 countries and two organizations, Universities Allied for Essential Medicines and the Center for Artistic Activism. Another is Lower Drug Prices Now, a U.S. coalition of nearly 60 social justice organizations.
My greatest hope is that when vaccines do arrive, they’ll be available first to those at greatest risk. In the U.S., that’s the elderly, the underinsured, the incarcerated, the homeless, the working class, health-care workers and first-responders, immigration detainees, racial minorities and those with high-risk medical conditions.
If our elected officials won’t ensure equitable, moral access to national and global life-saving vaccines, we must demand it.