COVID vaccine weekly: support builds for patent waiver as shortages threaten to bite

By Rob Reddick, Commissioning Editor, COVID-19

The US has this week backed a proposal to allow countries to manufacture COVID-19 vaccine doses without needing the agreement of the vaccines’ rights holders. This would be enabled by temporarily waiving intellectual property (IP) protection on all COVID-19 medical products. Removing such protections, the waiver’s proponents argue, will increase the amount of vaccine doses produced globally.

This is the theory. But in practice, waiving IP is unlikely to be a short-term solution to increasing vaccine manufacture, argues…

Read complete article

~	The denial of Palestinian childhood

~	Detoxifying masculinity: How men’s groups reshape attitudes

~	How marketing classes can rescue ‘ugly produce’ from becoming food waste

~	EU Misses Opportunity on Frontex Transparency, Accountability

~	Honoring a Philippine Human Rights Icon

~	Fallout: an expertly crafted TV adaptation that manages to incorporate some of the best elements of gameplay

~	Extraordinary Vietnam fraud case exposes the inherent vulnerabilities of banks

~	AI-powered ‘deep medicine’ could transform healthcare in the NHS and reconnect staff with their patients

~	Ukraine war: Putin’s plan to fire up Zaporizhzhia power plant risks massive nuclear disaster

~	How Israel continues to censor journalists covering the war in Gaza