Category: In the Media

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.

Merith Basey, one of our leaders here at Free The Vaccine and Executive Director at UAEM North America, recently went on the UnfairNation podcast to talk about why medicines are so expensive and why we need to free the vaccine. Check out the interview here!

Over the past few weeks, several Free The Vaccine participants have been featured on Tod Brilliant’s “Nice Work!” podcast, a project of the Super Nice Club.

Here you can check out Tod’s interview with Prince Andrew Ardayfio, a Salk Labs member in Accra, Ghana!

And here you can listen to his interview with Free The Vaccine team leads, Rebecca and Steve, who discuss the campaign so far!

Salk Labs members Olivia Bonardi and Izzy Levine were interviewed about the Free The Vaccine campaign on Breakaway With Alison Brunette, which broadcasts across Quebec on CBC Radio One! Check out Olivia and Izzy’s interviews here at the link that says “June 5, 2020: Free The Vaccine for COVID-19.”

This piece in STAT News discusses the need for a “people’s vaccine” affordable around the world in the broader context of foreign policy and international power. The piece gives a shout out to the Free The Vaccine campaign, pointing out that in addition to advocating for a people’s vaccine, we also “seek to dismantle the biomedical system upon which the Oxford-AstraZeneca deal [which prioritizes access to the vaccine in the U.S. and U.K. over other countries] was built.”

This piece in The New Republic is a comprehensive look at our biomedical R&D system, how it has failed people in the pandemic, and how it might be reimagined to better serve public health needs. The piece quotes a number of experts on access to medicines, including our very own Free The Vaccine project manager and UAEM Executive Director, Merith Basey!

America Dissected is a Crooked Media podcast looking at the COVID-19 global pandemic.

How did we get here? What went wrong? What do we do about it now? In season 2, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a physician and former city health commissioner, will keep you updated on what you need to know about COVID-19, what led us to this crisis in the first place, and what policies can lead us out.

In this episode Dr. El-Sayed talks with our own Merith Basey.

Abdul dissects how COVID19 is forcing us to deal with how interconnected our world is, whether we like it or not. Then he speaks with Oussama Mezoui with the international aid organization Penny Appeal and Merith Basey of Universities Allied for Essential Medicines.

Free the Vaccine for COVID-19 participant, L.M. Bogad, has a new podcast called The Plague. Check out episode three with Merith Basey, one of the leads of the Free The Vaccine for COVID-19 campaign.

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The Cambridge Globalist published an op-ed by Free The Vaccine participant Sofia Weiss Goitandia! In her piece, Sofia discusses the challenges in ensuring the equitable distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine. She argues that all vaccines developed with public funding should be sustainably priced, available to all, and free at the point of delivery. Click the link for her in-depth discussion of how these goals can be achieved!

The Canadian news magazine The Tyee published an op-ed by Free The Vaccine mentor Louise Kyle, discussing the campaign around the 50th anniversary of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine. As Louise writes,

There’s a simple solution to ensure that all diagnostics, vaccines and treatments for COVID-19 that are developed with Canadian public dollars are equitably priced, available to everyone and free at the point-of-delivery. We are asking for conditions on all public funding so that when the people pay for the vaccine, the vaccine gets to the people.

Check out the link to read the rest of the article!