by Cygne Sauvage
The president of one of the most powerful countries is touted in the news to have released a whopping multi billion dollar amount to the giant pharmaceutical company in the forefront of the race to develop a vaccine for the novel coronavirus, This is an advance placement for the right to the first hundred million produced drugs to be administered for free to the citizens. Being a reelectionist candidate for a forthcoming national poll the move is deemed as an opportunity for the leader whose popularity has been eclipsed by booboos in handling the pandemic and offensive pronouncements that alienated both supporters and adversaries to gain lost points.
Several medical research projects under the auspices of different bigwig medical companies have been launched hopefully to arrest the ongoing devastation of lives by the persistent pathogen. While the concomitant efforts may spell hope for humankind, still, their being spearheaded within the milieu of capitalist interests engenders worrisome doubts. The nobility of these endeavors could always be overshadowed by the profit motive as well as muddled by pressures from opportunistic politicians.
So much unlike the progressive paths traversed by development of vaccines for notable diseases that inflicted the world. Jonas Salk hatched the inoculation formula for polio starting the research in 1948 and finally introduced it to the world in 1955 through the funding from the nonprofit National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. “The field trial set up to test the Salk vaccine was the most elaborate program of its kind in history, involving 20,000 physicians and public health officers, 64,000 school personnel, and 220,000 volunteers. Over 1.8 million schoolchildren took part in the trial” (Fact Sheet—Polio Vaccine Field Trial of 1954. March of Dimes Archives. 2004 02 11). Dr. Salk deliberately did not seek patent for his work, regarded in medical history as a miracle, nor did he enjoy any monetary reward or returns. All he wished was for the organization that sponsored the undertaking to ensure its far reaching global distribution. Similar circumstances could be said of the discovery of the smallpox vaccine by the British Edward Jenner. His long arduous probe into the virus that annually took the lives of almost 10% of the world’s population was supported by the national government.
When a scientific invention on whose effectivity and availability rests the survival of humankind is reduced to a capitalist commodity in the context of a market economy, inequity is an inevitable determinant of access. Sadly, as would be expected, impoverished countries would have to practice longer the hygiene protocols under the new normal. On the other hand, this may turn to an advantage since as always initial outputs carry the kinks for refinement.
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