health

Push to bring coronavirus vaccines to the poor faces trouble

4 Comments
By MARIA CHENG and LORI HINNANT

The requested article has expired, and is no longer available. Any related articles, and user comments are shown below.

© Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.


4 Comments
Login to comment

He said WHO never consulted countries about its proposed vaccine strategy and called the health agency’s goal of vaccinating the world’s most vulnerable people before anyone else a “noble notion” but politically naive.

It is a problem when the people in charge of making decisions find out a really nice and effective way to do something and think it would be easy to implement because it is so obviously the best way. In the real world people in the government do not do the best thing, they do what brings them the most political benefits.

There is also concern that the fear of lawsuits could scuttle deals. According to the internal documents, Gavi told countries that drug companies will probably require assurances that they won't face product liability claims over deaths or other side effects from the vaccine.

Any company would be fine paying for effects scientifically proved to be due to the vaccine, the clinical trials are done precisely to prove negative side effects are extremely rare and mild. The problem is having to pay to fight all the claims, not only in money but in reputation. If the parents of a child that is paralyzed sue and the company wins (because, for example, it was proved the problem came from infection with a completely different pathogen caught in her school) it will still have to pay for the legal fees of the trials and newspapers will report it as "big pharma leaves parents of invalid girl in the street"

The best system that has been found to remediate this and implement a necessary, safe and effective health measure is for the government to take charge, trials are expedited so claimants will no longer have to prove the vaccine is the cause of the problems, only that it could be, to receive the money, while the vaccine can be distributed to alleviate whatever disease is running.

In civilized countries like Japan a vigilance and checking system is still in place to keep testing the vaccines for safety and efficacy. That way if something is wrong companies can be made responsible in a fight directly with the government instead of single particulars.

0 ( +2 / -2 )

There are also significant numbers of regions, areas or tribes where they will immediately kill anybody looking like medical staff especially when intending to distribute vaccines to everyone there. So it makes no sense to think about a complete vaccination in those poorer or culturally different parts of the world. Otherwise that will become a rather brutal military operation if still insisting.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Don’t worry y’all - Apple, Nike, etc will ensure the poor sweatshop workers get their vaccinations.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

I fully support testing these vaccines that are being rushed through by giving them to all the poor people first.

-3 ( +0 / -3 )

Login to leave a comment

Facebook users

Use your Facebook account to login or register with JapanToday. By doing so, you will also receive an email inviting you to receive our news alerts.

Facebook Connect

Login with your JapanToday account

User registration

Articles, Offers & Useful Resources

A mix of what's trending on our other sites