Merith Basey, Executive Director for UAEM North America, writes about the harmful role that Emory University has played in the licensing of a publicly-funded treatment, molnupiravir. Click on the link below for the full article in STAT News.

Just last night, we wrapped up our fourth season of Free the Vaccine for COVID-19! We’ve learned so much with our partners at the Center for Artistic Activism (C4AA) and we’ve delivered over 120 creative actions and many more prototypes in the fight for health equity and justice. Through our advocacy labs we continue to innovate new ways to pressure universities, publicly-funded institutions, corporations and governments to share COVID-19 medicines with the world. I’m delighted to share that it’s now your chance to get in on the action and learn some of the lessons we’ve been teaching throughout the campaign!

The Art of Activism, brought to you by the co-founders of the C4AA, brings together their extensive practical knowledge—gleaned from over a decade’s experience training activists around the world—with theoretical insights from fields as far-ranging as cultural studies and cognitive science. If you look closely you’ll see some familiar faces and campaign actions from our network and beyond.

If you’re looking for a way to shake up your activism at a Universities Allied for Essential Medicines chapter, at your job or in life, I can’t recommend this book enough. We all are dreaming of how to make the seemingly impossible, possible and this book is a guide to help us get there. If I had my way I’d gift every UAEM student, board member and donor this book! Instead I’ll ask you to see for yourselves. And if you haven’t donated yet to our record-breaking end of year fundraising campaign then please do chip in so we can deliver more trainings to more students in 2022. Every donation makes a difference to us. And if this book inspires (which it will), consider supporting a new season of our campaign next year.

If you’re feeling festive, you can join our teams in delivering this seasonal greeting to Moderna! Get creative with us, adapt the message to Pfizer, Astrazeneca or others! Download the image and tag them on social, sing your own carol (download lyric sheet here). We want to hear from you!

And if you are in Boston on Thursday, 12/23 join us in person at Moderna’s headquarters at 12:30pm (more info at this link)!

1. In the first wave of COVID
   Moderna brought to me
   A safe and effective vaccine.
2. In the second wave of COVID
   Moderna stole from me
   NIH research
   And a safe and effective vaccine.
3. In the third wave of COVID
   Moderna stole from me
   Billions from tax funding
   NIH research
   And a safe and effective vaccine.
4. In the fourth wave of COVID
   Moderna brought to me
   Refusal to share know-how
   Billions from tax funding
   NIH research
   And a vaccine that still is not free.
5. In the fifth wave of COVID
   Moderna brought to me
   A medical monopolyyyyy
   Refusal to share know-how
   Billions from tax funding
   NIH research
   And a vaccine that still is not free.
6. In the sixth wave of COVID
   Moderna brought to me
   Obscene corporate profits
   A medical monopoly
   Refusal to share know-how
   Billions from tax funding
   NIH research
   And a vaccine that still is not free.
7. In the seventh wave of COVID
   Moderna brought to me
   Artificial scarcity
   Obscene corporate profits
   A medical monopoly
   Refusal to share know-how
   Billions from tax funding
   NIH research
   And a vaccine that still is not free.
8. In the eighth wave of COVID
   Moderna brought to me
   Doses-a-wasting
   Artificial scarcity
   Obscene corporate profits
   A medical monopoly
   Refusal to share know-how
   Billions from tax funding
   NIH research
   And a vaccine that still is not free.
9. In the nineth wave of COVID
   Moderna brought to me
   Global health inequity
   Doses-a-wasting
   Artificial scarcity
   Obscene corporate profits
   A medical monopoly
   Refusal to share know-how
   Billions from tax funding
   NIH research
   And a vaccine that still is not free.
10. In the tenth wave of COVID
    Moderna brought to me
    A petri dish for variants
    Global health inequity
    Doses-a-wasting
    Artificial scarcity
    Obscene corporate profits
    A medical monopoly
    Refusal to share know-how
    Billions from tax funding
    NIH research
    And a vaccine that still is not free.
11. In the eleventh wave of COVID
    Moderna brought to me
    millions of unnecessary deaths
    A petri dish for variants
    Global health inequity
    Doses-a-wasting
    Artificial scarcity
    Obscene corporate profits
    A medical monopoly
    Refusal to share know-how
    Billions from tax funding
    NIH research
    And a vaccine that still is not free.
12. In the eleventh wave of COVID
    Moderna brought to me
    no accountability
    millions of unnecessary deaths
    A petri dish for variants
    Global health inequity
    Doses-a-wasting
    Artificial scarcity
    Obscene corporate profits
    A medical monopoly
    Refusal to share know-how
    Billions from tax funding
    NIH research
    And a vaccine that still is not free.
    
    Or this solo rant can be used as the 12th verse:
    
    12. In the twelfth wave of COVID
    Moderna brought to me
    A soulless disregard for human suffering for a nauseating amount of profit that no one could ever spend, much less enjoy, at the expense of the most vulnerable in nations around the world while blatantly fixating on bids from the most wealthy nations in a way that is neither fair nor effective and in fighting a global pandemic according to an overwhelming number of brilliant people who sincerely care about human rights and equality who have been forced to look on in disgust while simultaneously working to right this wrong and raging harder than the pandemic itself to defeat your greed and governments fear of holding any pharma corporation truly accountable and shortsighted lack of imagination for real solutions that could be enacted today and save millions of lives.
    And a vaccine that still is not free.
    

Recording of 12 Waves of COVID by Raven Angelique Barbiran

We’re about to launch our 4th cohort of volunteers with a plan to keep pressure on Moderna to share our public-funded COVID-19 vaccine technology and know-how with the world. We’ll be trying and testing new tactics and we hope you’ll amplify our messages and voices along the way. Today less than 5% of the African continent has access to a life-saving vaccine for their most vulnerable while high income countries are preparing to give booster shots and doses to children and adolescents. Help us prevent vaccine apartheid and free the vaccine.

ALL STAR PANEL speaking truth to power and which heats up fast! UAEM co-founder Amy Kapczynski from Yale Law School is the moderator, Fatima Hassan, South African human rights lawyer and co-founder of Health Justice Initiative, Zain Rizvi of Public Citizen, James Krellenstein of Prep4All and Dr David Kessler from the White House on global vaccine access.

‘Here’s how to watch “TRULY an intense panel” (Politico) that was “fairly remarkable” (The Hill), “intense” (Axios) and getting “tenser and tenser” (STAT), with advocates pressing David Kessler from the White House on global vaccine access.’

It was co-sponsored by the Global Health Justice Project (GHJP) and the Law and Political Economy Project.

Dear President Biden,

We are writing to you ahead of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) to urge that you take on a global leadership role and fulfill your promise of addressing COVID-19 around the world. We understand that during the UNGA, you will be hosting a global vaccine summit with participation of other world leaders where you will be announcing an admirable target of 70% of the world’s population to be vaccinated within the next year.

Reaching this goal, however, will be impossible unless you and other world leaders take action to ensure equitable vaccine distribution.

While it is commendable that your administration has procured and distributed COVID-19 vaccines to other countries in need, we cannot “donate” our way to safety. The massive global shortage of highly effective vaccines can only be addressed by increasing production. As of this week, just over 3% of people in low-income countries, many of whom are also facing devastating surges from deadly variants, have received any dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

COVAX, the global program intended to secure and distribute doses for low- and middle-income countries is failing. Recently, COVAX cut its forecast for doses available in 2021 by a quarter, driven in large part by wealthier nations stockpiling excess doses in lieu of providing these
vaccines and funds to this global program. As your administration considers distributing third booster doses to a broader population of Americans, it must not ignore the equity considerations of such a policy in further delaying vaccine access to people in the Global South, many of whom have yet to receive even a single dose. Moreover, such an approach may also only further fuel the emergence of even more virulent variants, which thrive in unvaccinated populations.

To truly make America the world’s “arsenal” of global vaccine access, we ask that you immediately deliver on the following policies:

• launch an ambitious global vaccine manufacturing program with other countries to help produce billions more highly effective doses within one year and support a dedicated financing line item in the Build Back Better Act committing billions of dollars to this effort;
• use your full authorities to require the few firms with monopolies over effective vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics to transfer technology and production know-how to manufacturers in the Global South;
• set an example for other countries by reallocating excess doses available to countries in the Global South via COVAX or regional procurement mechanisms; and
• work with allied countries on a final text to speedily enact a temporary, emergency waiver of certain World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPS) rules that create barriers to widespread production of COVID-19 health technologies including vaccines, diagnostics, and treatments

Attached are further details of why these four steps are critically important towards realizing the goal of vaccinating 70% of the world’s population within the next year. We also outline the tremendous capability you have to carry forward these policies to end this pandemic. Your leadership on these above steps is urgently needed to move the world closer to a future where the pandemic truly ends for everyone, everywhere. At the UNGA, we hope that you will not just
offer more promises for these urgently needed policy measures, but that you will take on a global leadership role in implementing them.

Short of such action, the pandemic will continue its devastation, driven by a lack of political will to truly engage in a global, collective effort to protect everyone, everywhere.

Sincerely,

For further details download this attachment below:

  

Please join the Program on Information, Justice and IP at American University for a one year retrospective of the Open COVID Pledge.  We will examine the origins of the pledge and the reasons for pledgors to take the pledge, the potential of pledges to serve the public interest and future opportunities for pledges to promote innovation that serves the greater good. Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 will be present and particupating!

April 28, 2021 | 12:00pm-3:00pm EDT  | 4pm-7pm UTC
Registration (Required)

https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/pijip/events/the-open-covid-pledge-at-one-year/

We know governments can do much more to end the global pandemic, including sharing vaccine recipes and helping the world make billions more doses.   

Join us May 5^th in Washington, DC for a Rally for a People’s Vaccine and to call on the Biden administration to ensure urgent access to safe and effective COVID-19 treatments and vaccines for everyone, everywhere.  

Where: 4th and Madison SW, National Mall, Washington, D.C

When: May 5th, 2:00 p.m. to 4 p.m.

• 

Millions in the Global South will not get COVID-19 vaccines until 2024. The Biden administration has an opportunity to make vaccines available by supporting the TRIPS Waiver at the World Trade Organization, as proposed by India and South Africa. Furthermore, the U.S. can and should invest money in scaling up global vaccine manufacturing. Join the call to #FreeTheVaccine!

¡Rally de DC por una vacuna del pueblo!

Sabemos que los gobiernos pueden hacer mucho más para poner fin a la pandemia mundial, incluso compartir recetas de vacunas y ayudar al mundo a producir miles de millones de dosis más.

Únase a nosotros este 5 de mayo en Washington, DC para una manifestación por una vacuna popular y para pedir a la administración de Biden que garantice el acceso urgente a tratamientos y vacunas COVID-19 seguros y efectivos para todos, en todas partes.

¿Le gustaría recibir el boletín informativo Libera la vacuna para COVID-19?

Could you patent the sun? Check out this track by Free the Vaccine supporter Deonte Keitt aka DJ Chalant created for our campaign. Follow Deonte on instagram: DJChalant and Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/DJChalant

Free mp3 download

This song is released into the Public Domain – no rights reserved.

Don’t miss this fantastic article co-authored by Free the Vaccine supporter and advocate Dr Reshma Ramachandran today in The Nation. Reshma will also be joining us at 12:30pm for our info session this afternoon, January 27th. Sign up on the home page of Free the Vaccine!