Episode 28: Corona power of Big Pharma & European lies

EU Watchdog Radio

Corporate Europe Observatory and Counter Balance

News, Politics

5 • 1 Ratings

🗓️ 6 December 2021

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In this new episode we’ll talk to two experts - Dimitri Eynikel, an expert of Doctors without Borders and CEO-researcher Olivier Hoedeman- on how the EU is dealing with the new phase of the pandemic, with a special focus on the still unresolved unequal access of large parts of the world to Covid-19 vaccines, new medicines and therapeutics. Experts have long warned that if the global population does not have access to vaccines, new variants of the virus will emerge and hit us back....

Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening.
0:06.0	You're listening to EU Watchdog Radio.
0:29.8	Welcome to a new episode of EU Watchdog Radio.
0:34.0	My name is Hans Van Schare, media officer at Corporate Europe Observatory, also known as CEO.
0:40.2	And yes, once more we must discuss the coronavirus and how governments are being sidelined by powerful pharmaceutical companies.
0:49.1	In this episode, we'll touch base on where we stand with the pandemic and access to vaccines and therapeutics.
0:56.0	We are now December 2021 and the COVID-19 pandemic is still raging in many parts of the world.
1:04.0	And while most sensible Europeans are happy to be receiving a booster jab in low and middle-income countries, most people can only dream of having access to such a vaccine.
1:15.5	The head of the World Health Organization warned in July that the gap in COVID-19 supplies is hugely uneven and inequitable.
1:24.6	He said countries and regions should not order more millions of doses before other
1:29.5	countries have supplied to vaccinate their health workers and most vulnerable, especially when
1:35.8	the Delta variant is driving a new spike in COVID-19 cases and death. End of quote. In the meantime,
1:42.9	we watch the spread of Omicron.
1:46.4	The production of vaccines needs to be scaled up urgently. Experts have been saying for many,
1:52.3	many months, and many of those experts, scientists, hundreds of NGOs, top politicians and
1:58.3	the Pope, have argued that an important hurdle for that upscaling are
2:02.6	patents and intellectual property rights and the refusal by Big Pharma to share technology.
2:09.6	And the truth is that the EU is de facto blocking the increase of production
2:14.6	because it wants to protect the competitiveness of its pharmaceutical sector
2:18.5	by protecting its patents, and also by allowing non-transparency on, for example, the price of medicines.
2:27.5	And all this, while the EU has spent billions of public money for the research and development,
2:33.0	production and derisking of new vaccines.
	...

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