Last week, the Johnson & Johnson vaccine entered its next phase of its Research & Development life: Phase 3 trials. Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine joins Moderna and Pfizer as well as several other vaccine candidates worldwide in taking the next step to help mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic — testing their product on thousands of healthy volunteers.
However, as pharmaceutical companies continue to spit out promising candidates for a safe and effective vaccine, experts are urging them to wait for more data on the safety of the vaccine before proceeding to seek FDA authorization. Their sentiments are echoed at Free the Vaccine for COVID-19, where our work revolves around vaccines, diagnostic tools, and treatments that have been proven to be safe and effective. You can read more about the 60 leading bioethicists and researchers who are urging Pfizer to hold off until November on seeking FDA approval here.
Alliance for Health Policy Event: COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment
As we continue to see news outlets infiltrated with concerns and progress regarding a COVID-19 vaccine, the lack of transparency about access becomes more prominent. If you are interested in gaining more insight into vaccine accessibility and potential schemes for vaccine deployment, the Alliance for Health Policy is holding an event on September 30th, 2020. Panelists will be discussing the manufacturing, distribution, delivery, and coverage techniques that would allow for the United States to have nationwide COVID-19 vaccine access. For those interested in attending, more information and a registration link can be found here.
The event features four members: Richard Hughes, Esther Krofah, Nicolette Louissaint, and Reed Tuckson. Hughes is the Managing Director and Vaccines and Preventive Services Leader at Avalere Health; Krofah is the Executive Director of FasterCures; Louissaint is the Executive Director of Healthcare Ready, and Reed Tuckson is the Managing Director for Tuckson is the Board Chair for the Alliance for Health Policy.
Season 2 Week 2 Podcast for Free the Vaccine for COVID-19
For those who are unaware, the Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 Campaign recently launched a weekly News Podcast to update you on what’s happening in the world of the vaccine. You can access the latest episode for Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 week 2 here! (We’ll have an official podcast feed up soon.)
Thomas Gokey is a current Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 participant and a Phase 3 trial volunteer. Since Phase 3 trials for COVID-19 vaccines have begun accepting participants, thousands across the globe have been volunteering to help science learn if a vaccine is safe and effective for larger public use. Have you ever wondered how these volunteers feel about access to a COVID-19 vaccine?
I am willing to risk my life to make humanity safer — not to make Big Pharma richer or to create a vaccine only for Americans.
Thomas Gokey in the Guardian
In a recent Op-Ed published in the Guardian, Thomas Gokey shares his thoughts as an insider — a volunteer for a COVID-19 vaccine trial — who had second thoughts on his decision to participate in the clinical trial. Gokey noted “I am willing to risk my life to make humanity safer — not to make Big Pharma richer or to create a vaccine only for Americans.” Gokey’s concerns were influenced in part by the U.S. decision to not join Covax, an effort linked to the World Health Organization (WHO) to distribute a coronavirus vaccine globally. Be sure to read the full Op-Ed here.
We admire Thomas both for for his generosity and his critical eye when it comes to Phase 3 trials and his participation in Free the Vaccine for COVID-19.
200,000 lives. September 22nd marked 200,000 lives documented to be lost to the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States alone. Globally, 31,364,008 individuals have been infected and 965,691 lives have been lost to a pandemic that shook the world by surprise. Officials from the Trump Administration, including Donald Trump himself, have been boasting about their mitigation efforts in “preventing” a second wave. Let’s take a look at some of the actions at the U.S. government has taken so far to help “prevent” a second wave:
The Pentagon’s Wish List
Earlier this year, Congress passed the $3 trillion CARES Act, which provided economic assistance to families and small businesses while working to preserve jobs and American industries. Among many components, the CARES act provided $1 billion in funding to the Pentagon to procure medical technologies and assist the United States in supplying medical necessities (masks, ventilators, etc) to hospitals and institutions in dire need of supplies: a matter of life and death. Nevertheless, the Pentagon used taxpayer money — 1,000,000,000 in taxpayer dollars that is — to fulfill their own shopping lists, buying everything from Army dress uniform fabric to airplane parts. Not exactly what the United States needed to prevent the second wave, right? Read more about the Pentagon’s wish list here.
A USPS Plan Butchered
In addition, the United States Postal Service, or USPS, has been a hot topic of conversation for the past few months, especially given their ever-increasing role in the 2020 United States Elections. This past week revealed to us that the USPS had plans to distribute 650 million face masks in April to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic — you can probably guess what happens next. A potentially life-saving action that would have provided protective gear to hundreds of millions of Americans was blocked by the Trump Administration in order to avoid “creating panic.”
With top-level officials in the United States government struggling to understand the value of American lives, the race to uncover safe and effective vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 faces more pressure. Trump may be boasting about vaccine development under his administration’s watch, but the truth is, nobody knows what the data will reveal in upcoming months. Not even Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases.
So no, Donald Trump, you did not stop the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. That is why activists at Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 and other organizations around the world are fighting to make sure that everyone can access a vaccine to end this pandemic, a pandemic that has taken almost one million lives from us.
Photo of Ishtar Lakhani from Chris Collingridge (Maverick Citizen)
Have you heard the news? A new avenger was just added— the human rights defender. Having participated in both Season 1 and Season 2, she just happens to be a key member of our Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 team. Ishtar Lakhani was recently highlighted as Maverick Citizen’s Friday Activist where her work involving many social justice projects around the globe was covered.
Ishtar told the crew at Maverick Citizen that her mission is to “break new ground through creativity, humour, and play — putting the ‘fun’ in fundamental rights.” Sound familiar? As an alum of the Center for Artistic Activism, one of the collaborators for the Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 Campaign, Ishtar’s passion lies in creative activism and she brings her knowledge and expertise to advocacy work across several continents.
Ishtar exemplified her work in social justice and creative activism with an ongoing project in Australia. She is working with an organization to help raise awareness about the evolution of women’s rights from the 1920s to now by creating a “real life time machine” that would transport people back to the 1920s. Originally from South Africa, Ishtar has also worked as an advocacy manager for the Sex Workers’ Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT), where she fought to decriminalize sex work in South Africa.
Be sure to check out the rest of the piece highlighting the work that our own resident “freelance troublemaker” Ishtar does here. And keep coming back to hear more about the incredible individuals that make up the Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 team!
This week we had our first meeting with a new wave of volunteers. Participants learned who we are, what we do, and spoke to each other for a few minutes about our excitement for the campaign! Our new group is aged from under 18 to over 65, from 24 countries on every continent except Antarctica, and working in fields from economics, to medicine, to music, and education. In addition, we are happy to announce we have officially partnered with the Arts Corps as one of the leading organizations behind Free the Vaccine for COVID-19!
As always, Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 emphasizes an audience-driven, experiment-informed approach that strives to empower individuals to employ the creative tactics we teach during weekly meetings in their advocacy work. And we walk the walk. While most hour-long zoom calls end in snoozing (or boozing), Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 meetings have a surprising element. The end of our last meeting in July became the Season Finale and participants got one striking cliffhanger in the form of a soap opera developed by our team ending with a “Who Shot J.R.” moment. Mid-way through our first meeting, “The Season Premiere” on Wednesday, attendees saw the soap opera return with Nurse Merith, “S.L.”, Rebecca, an Evil Rebecca, and Dr. James Miles. The mystery continues…
These elements of our meetings – soap operas, awards, game shows – remind our participants that we appreciate the hard work and time they are dedicating to our campaign, and most importantly, that keeping things fun keeps our group’s vitality up, especially when the issues we’re facing are dire.
The Week in Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 Podcast
One of the exciting new developments this season is our introduction of a news podcast available to everyone no matter your involvement in the campaign. This will soon be a public podcast feed, but you can get a sneak preview of the first episode here — stay tuned for more updates!
Vaccine Development
If you are new to Free the Vaccine, or even if you need a recap, you may be wondering what is happening in the world of vaccine development. While tens of hundreds of scientists around the world have been pooling their resources to develop a vaccine, a few have advanced to Phase 3 trials, in which vaccines are administered to thousands of people and infection rates are compared with a placebo. Updates on the current Phase 3 vaccine trials can be found here. Our job now is to use our skills and training to make sure pharmaceutical greed does not keep these vaccines out of the public’s reach, if they are proven safe and effective.
Returning collective members, please fill out the above form also!
More details on below.
First, What is Free the Vaccine for COVID-19?
Our campaign aims to ensure that publicly-funded diagnostic tools, treatment, and the COVID-19 vaccine will be sustainably priced, available to all and free at the point-of-delivery. We are finding new ways to achieve this through leveraging creativity, culture, as well as tried and tested organizing and activism in our Advocacy Innovation Lab.
We take our inspiration from virologist Jonas Salk, the creator of the polio vaccine. Salk refused to patent or profit off his work.
We are a global collective with hundreds of members from dozens of countries. We meet regularly and plan and execute creative campaigns. We have already completed one 16 week round of organizing and actions with our focus on the over $11 billion of public funds already invested in pharmaceutical R&D at universities for COVID-19. Changing the way these universities patent and license their research is a critical lever that can prevent pharmaceutical monopolies and increase access to life-saving medicines across the globe.
Think of a book club – small groups of smart people sharing a common interest. In this case, our focus is changing the way the biomedical research and development (R&D) system and the we research and deliver medicines. And we don’t just talk about it over tea, we are taking action. As a member of the collective, you’ll be in a small “Salk Squad,” named after virologist, Jonas Salk, who refused to patent or profit off his polio vaccine. Squads are supported throughout the process with training and structures to learn artistic activism, and the history and theory behind the access to medicines movement.
What’s it like?
You will meet people all over the world who are working so COVID tests, treatments and vaccines are affordable and accessible to everyone, everywhere. A lofty goal we know but an important one. You’ll meet online to hatch plans, access videos and other training materials, and put together your own plan based on the skills and interests of your team. The whole experience is about learning new skills, getting things done, and having fun with an amazing community of people.
Who are we looking for?
We come from all sorts of backgrounds – some with no experience with these issues, some with lots. There are creative people, and people who don’t think of themselves as creative when they start. We’ve had pharmacists, dancers, front-line workers, graphic designers, hollywood hairstylists, and students. There are adults of all ages, and from all over the world. All of them did great work.
We’re especially focusing recruitment for Season 2 on these universities and regions:
In the U.S.: DC, NYC, Pittsburgh, southern California (Universities of California), Georgia, Tennessee (Vanderbilt), Seattle, Indiana University.
In Canada:Montreal (McGill), and British Colombia.
Also, South Africa, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, UK, Australia, the Netherlands and Germany.
But if you don’t see your location or university listed, please do apply anyway. We need passionate people from everywhere.
What will you get out of it?
Training and skills from the Center for Artistic Activism in using culture and creativity to create real change. These methods you’ll use for the rest of your life when you want to make things happen.
Play a role in ensuring that publicly-funded medicines are accessible and affordable, with a focus on the most vulnerable.
Learning about how the current system we use to research, develop and deliver our medicines works – from the economics, to the science, to day to day issues around caregiving – and how we can change it to center people and health-needs first
A creative way to spend your time that makes a real difference
New connections with people around the world who are as passionate and interesting as you.
How much time does it involve?
Around 4 hours a week. Like a book club, those hours are mostly flexible and on your timeline, in addition to one or two short, entertaining (we’ve been told) group meetings a week where we learn, plan, and get things done.
“Free the vaccine has given me the hope, structure, and accountability I need to put my skills to use.”
“While we’re results driven, I also feel a genuine sense of team love and pride – something very hard to do virtually. (Kudos!)”
“There was a real feeling of being connected to a large, engaged, creative, active network!”
If you read this newsletter, we have two things to say. One, we love you! And two, we want to know what you love.
Has a particular Free The Vaccine action inspired you? Do you wake up every Friday excited for the Special Bonus Content in this newsletter? Would you like to see a deeper dive into vaccine-related news, or into our participants’ crafting process? Do you think we should be taking to the streets—like we did in our London Carnival March—more often?
We want to hear from you, and you can email us at info@freethevaccine.org!
Watch this video of the march, set to our viral “Jolene” parody track!
The Seal Lab organized this incredible march of 30 demonstrators—the maximum number allowed to gather—in London this past week! From the creative costumes to the brilliant UAEM banner, we’re seeing so much inspiration for future demonstrations. Check out the video and share with your friends!
The march was covered by the BBC (listen to the recording here) as well as in The Telegraph:
And everyone had a great time, as you can tell from the pictures below!
Free vaccines fighting the virus–for the whole world!
