Only in the United States can innovators create a lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine at “warp speed.”
The same can’t be said for bad actors such as China, which cheats and steals what America innovates. That’s precisely why we need to protect our innovators’ intellectual property rights, especially when it comes to the COVID-19 vaccine.
In recent months, members of the World Trade Organization’s Council for Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights have attempted to undermine legal IP protections for COVID-related technologies such as vaccines. These members have requested a waiver for these protections so foreign nations, including China, can reap the benefits of the hard work and investments made by U.S. vaccine developers.
Further compounding this situation is the Biden administration’s announcement that it supports the waiver. This decision is just another example of how committed President Joe Biden remains to his “America Last” platform.
Starting in May 2020, under former President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, American pharmaceutical companies worked tirelessly to produce a lifesaving vaccine and are now actively vaccinating millions of people worldwide.
This campaign has been a boon to U.S. workers as well: The average salary is more than $90,000 for pharmaceutical researchers and more than $77,000 for vaccine manufacturers, according to Payscale.
Close to a million workers are employed in biopharmaceuticals. They are in such high demand that some companies have paid $3,000 bonuses to new workers to manufacture vaccines.
U.S. workers are earning excellent salaries to manufacture products to ship overseas, thanks to America’s innovative spirit and Operation Warp Speed.
Our success hasn’t come at the expense of other countries, of course. On the contrary, thanks to strong IP protections, American vaccine makers are on track to make billions of doses and have promised 140 million vaccines to help other countries in need. The federal government has sent millions of doses as well.
But without IP protections, foreign countries (including China) could begin copying American vaccines without the safeguards against counterfeits we have in the U.S.
Not only would Biden’s rollback of IP protections hurt Americans now, but it would hurt us even more in the future. According to Heritage Foundation visiting legal analyst Adam Mossoff, government intervention to weaken IP rights would demolish “innovation, destroy markets, and stymie or degrade economic development.”
If IP rights are attacked or weakened, companies may decide to make their vaccines in another country next time, depriving the U.S. of jobs and revenue.
The Biden administration fails to understand that without America’s strong IP protections, we would never have developed these lifesaving vaccines in the first place. It shouldn’t be any surprise the very countries without IP protections, such as India and China, don’t have domestically created COVID-19 vaccines and are playing politics at an international trade body to coerce countries, such as the U.S., to hand over their IP.
What is unconscionable is Biden and his trade team are not only not opposed to this action but actively support it.
That’s why it’s time for Congress to act to protect Americans’ IP rights the Biden administration seeks to eliminate. The Preventing Foreign Attempts to Erode Healthcare Innovation Act (HR 3035/S 1683) proactively seeks to prevent the U.S. from being complicit in stealing IP from its own citizens and giving access to bad actors across the globe.
The bill also prohibits the Biden administration from using funds to support a motion at the World Trade Organization that would seek to eliminate all IP rights protections for COVID-related innovations.
We cannot let the Biden administration waive the IP rights of U.S. innovators and put the interests of the CCP and our adversaries over the American people. That’s why we need the Preventing Foreign Attempts to Erode Healthcare Innovation Act.
This will be a win for Americans and citizens of other countries alike, and it will help protect the innovative ideas that will ensure the next needed vaccine is developed right here in the U.S.
Byron Donalds represents Florida’s 19th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. Jessica Anderson is executive director of Heritage Action for America.
