When President Joe Biden delivered his address to Congress, he promised to protect American jobs and bring foreign manufacturing, particularly from China, back to the United States. But in another move to appease socialist Democrats and the most extreme members of his party, Biden announced support for waiving intellectual property protections for COVID-19 vaccines under the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights.
There is no doubt the U.S. and American companies have an important role to play in expanding vaccine production to meet the global need. However, rather than increasing vaccine supply to other countries, this disastrous proposal will harm innovation and prove to be counterproductive in our fight against the pandemic.
For more than two centuries, the U.S. has led the world in innovation thanks to our patent system. IP protections have strengthened the U.S. economy, created millions of good jobs, and made our country the world leader in the development of cutting-edge diagnostics, treatments, and cures. In fact, the U.S. biopharmaceutical industry funds nearly half of the entire world’s medical research and development.
It was because of this U.S.-led investment and former President Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed that several groundbreaking COVID-19 vaccines were authorized in less than a year, which many doubted was feasible. As we near herd immunity and fully reopen, we must continue to help the rest of the world, but Biden’s proposal will not increase vaccine supply.
These vaccines require highly sophisticated manufacturing facilities with specialized equipment and trained employees. It would take years for other countries to construct fully operational manufacturing facilities. We would then be faced with the prospect of having a large supply of complex vaccines being produced and distributed by unqualified manufacturers with little or no regulatory oversight.
Additionally, it is very likely that these foreign countries would also use the knowledge they gained from our COVID-19 vaccines to make other, unrelated medical products designed to compete directly with the U.S. Specifically, this cutting edge technology would be a gift to China as it seeks to overtake the United States in numerous areas, including biotechnology.
The Chinese government has made it clear through the “Made in China 2025” plan that it intends to challenge American biopharmaceutical innovation and manufacturing. This would be done largely through IP theft, cyberintrusions, and the infiltration of Communist Party sympathizers into U.S. biopharmaceutical research labs. According to the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, the Chinese government has been engaged in a sophisticated and wide-ranging effort to steal U.S. COVID-19 vaccine research over the past year, particularly the mRNA technology used to develop some of the latest vaccines.
With the decision to move forward with these waivers, Biden would be helping China compete against our own country. The last thing America should do is hand gifts to China, especially as it continues to stonewall investigations into the origins of the coronavirus.
There must be a full scientific investigation into what got us to the point of needing a lifesaving vaccine in the first place. That includes fully understanding the Chinese government’s involvement and knowledge of the outbreak.
The evidence is increasingly pointing to the Wuhan Institute of Virology as the source of COVID-19. As recently revealed by the Wall Street Journal, several lab researchers fell ill with COVID-19-consistent symptoms just weeks before the pandemic was internationally realized.
Despite worldwide pressure, China has blocked access for international investigators to the Wuhan Institute of Virology labs. This comes as no surprise, though, after it hid the extent of the pandemic from the international community as the coronavirus wildly spread to other countries in early 2020. Even the China-influenced WHO has called for more investigations into the lab leak origin theory.
Why would America knowingly give China advanced biopharmaceutical technology when it lied about a deadly pandemic that cost American lives and jobs? China has spent the past year trying to mislead the world, even going so far as to blame the U.S. for developing and leaking COVID-19.
Instead of giving new opportunities to China, Biden should work with Congress, industry, and other governments to increase the supply and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines worldwide and rescind this disastrous proposal. We must increase access to vaccines while protecting our long and storied history of protecting IP to spur innovation.
Biden must get tough on China. American innovation and the health and welfare of the world are at stake.
Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter represents Georgia’s 1st Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is a member of the House Doctors Caucus and the Health Subcommittee on the Energy and Commerce Committee.
