here's what to do if you're worried about the ethics of booster shots

we live with ‘vaccine apartheid’: who

“if everyone is vaccinated, eventually infections drop to zero and so do variants,“ dr. purvi parikh, an allergist and immunologist in new york, told healthline . “but if the virus has an easy host, such as an unvaccinated individual, then it is easy for it to mutate into a more contagious and virulent form.”

the most recent iteration, omicron, is “a natural consequence of being too slow to vaccinate the world,” university of southampton senior research fellow in global health michael head told cnn . “we still have large unvaccinated populations, like we have across sub-saharan africa, and these are susceptible to big outbreaks.”

as of this july, according to the journal nature, 80 per cent of the 3.2 billion doses that have been administered globally have gone to people in “high-income and upper-middle-income countries,” including canada, the u.s., the u.k., spain, portugal, south korea, china, and the united arab emirates.

and while vaccination rates in those countries range from about 60 per cent (in the u.s.) to 98 per cent (the u.a.e), numbers in lower-income countries are considerably lower. the entire continent of africa, for example — with 1.3 billion people — has only a 7.8 per cent vaccination rate. that average is driven up by remote, wealthy areas like seychelles and mauritius, which have very high vaccination numbers. in south africa, the continent’s country with the highest incidence of covid cases, there’s a 42 per cent vaccination rate, while in kenya and nigeria, it’s six and 1.8 per cent, respectively. and as infections in those countries continue to rise, it’s estimated that six out of every seven cases in the continent aren’t even being detected. tedros adhanom ghebreyesus, director general of the who, went so far as to call the global situation “ vaccine apartheid .”

canada’s commitment to access

“canada understands that we don’t end this pandemic anywhere until we end it everywhere,” said prime minister justin trudeau, as part of global citizen’s vax live  event in may, which aimed to promote vaccine equity. “we will continue to step up, because canada knows we need to be there for each other.”

and while lanoix calls for canadians to “pressure local mps and the government to do what they promised,” and points out that according to documents analyzed by the breach, lobbying meetings between pharmaceutical companies and the canadian government increased by 80 per cent over the last year, the government says it’s working on a way forward.

drug companies, meanwhile, are opposed to the move. they’ve made record profits this year — two moderna executives and an early investor all become billionaires in 2021 . fabien paquette, pfizer canada’s vaccines lead, says the opposition is unrelated to profits — vaccines unprotected by patents carry risk, he says.

navigating opposition to a trips waiver

waiving trips to increase vaccine access was first proposed to the wto in october 2020 , by government officials from india and south africa. the proposal asked the wto “to allow all countries to choose to neither grant nor enforce patents and other intellectual property (ip) related to covid-19 drugs, vaccines, diagnostics and other technologies for the duration of the pandemic, until global herd immunity is achieved.” it has support from united nations, amnesty international and doctors without borders, among other heavyweight groups. and in late november of this year, as omicron emerged as a potential threat, u.s. president joe biden also called to waive international patent rules, citing the importance of vaccine access around the world.

“the news about this new variant should make clearer than ever why this pandemic will not end until we have global vaccinations,” he said .

“fundamentally, we remain to be convinced how an ip waiver, if agreed, would increase the supply of covid-19 goods,” the u.k. government said in a statement in june . “to date, we have still not seen evidence demonstrating intellectual property as a limiting factor in either the production or the supply of covid-19 goods.”

very arrogant reply from @sajidjavid when i ask why his govt won't support ip waiver for covid vaccines - which vast majority of countries are asking for

it's not *helpful* he says. that’s for them to decide, not him. more than that, it's a matter of life & death #peoplesvaccine pic.twitter.com/xmgykqkutp

— caroline lucas (@carolinelucas) november 29, 2021

drug companies “got public funding to develop these vaccines,” lanoix says, referring to the nearly usd $2 billion in funding pfizer received from the u.s. government and the german company biontech, which was itself funded by the german government and the eu .

historical precedent for waiving ip: the aids crisis

in the late 1990s, when hiv and aids cases were spiking in low- and middle-income countries, the hardest-hit country, globally, was south africa. in 2001, 62 per cent of its population — that’s 28 million people — had hiv. treatment with patented medication would have cost about usd$7 billion — 27 times the south african government’s budget for healthcare. but when south africa attempted to bypass patent rules on public health grounds, the government faced lawsuits by a group of 39 drug companies including glaxosmithkline, merck, bristol-myers squibb, hoffman-roche, and boehringer ingelheim.

”we don’t exist in a vacuum,” j. p. garnier, chief executive of glaxosmithklein, told the new york times in april 2001 . ”we’re a very major corporation. we’re not insensitive to public opinion.”

if you don’t take the booster, it’ll go to waste