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**JULY 16, 2021**

Kuttner on TAP

Shame on Merkel

****

In her White House meetings, Angela Merkel did not give any ground on
Biden's request to get with the program and allow the world to get
cheap COVID vaccines.

To Biden's great credit-the behind-the-scenes hero here is U.S.
Trade Rep Katherine Tai-the administration reversed the U.S. position
in May and supported a waiver of the trade agreement on intellectual
property known as TRIPS that prohibits other manufacturers from
producing patented vaccines.

More than 140 nations, including other major EU members led by France,
support the waiver. Germany is the main holdout.

A waiver will allow other countries, notably India, which already
produces a large share of the world's vaccines, to produce cheap COVID
vaccines using the processes created by Pfizer or Moderna or Johnson &
Johnson without having to pay licensing fees.

If ever there were an emergency moment for such a waiver, it is now, as
we are already seeing another upsurge in the pandemic. So what's with
Merkel? She has been a good humanitarian, taking real political risks to
admit large numbers of refugees. She will also be leaving office in
September, so she has nothing to lose politically by supporting the
waiver.

Evidently, Markel is acting for the German company BioNTech, which
developed much of the science behind the vaccine now being produced and
marketed mainly by Pfizer. But if that's the case, Merkel may be
getting lousy advice on what's at stake.

The reality is that under its deal with Pfizer, BioNTech has rights to
sell the vaccine mainly in Germany; Pfizer bought most worldwide rights,
though recent press accounts refer to possible BioNTech deals to sell to
Indonesia and Thailand. If a TRIPS waiver is approved, all these profit
opportunities vanish.

Ironically, all this comes at a moment when Pfizer is disparaging the
efficacy of its own vaccine, in order to compel people to get booster
shots. In the industry's fantasy, these would be at a "post-pandemic
price" of $150 a dose or more.

These drugmakers were handsomely subsidized by taxpayers, and have
already made windfall profits in the tens of billions. At his White
House meetings, Biden had other fish to fry with Merkel, including a
common front vis-à-vis China. But the West doesn't have a great
reputation in the Third World right now; and China, which is already
supplying cheap vaccines to the global South is making headway with its
claims that its model is superior to the West's.

The U.S. needs to keep the pressure on Merkel; and Merkel, a pastor's
daughter, needs to look to her own conscience.

~ ROBERT KUTTNER

Follow Robert Kuttner on Twitter

Robert Kuttner's latest book is
The Stakes: 2020 and the Survival of American Democracy
.

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