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Ask HN: Is Bill Gates' opposition to waiving patents on Covid vaccines monetary?

23 points by bobosha 5y ago

What could possibly explain why someone who has given away so much money on global health be opposed to something seemingly the right thing to do. I would love to get the tech community's take on it.

SamReidHughes 5y ago
He gave his reasons.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
rsouthpaw 5y ago
Watch this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Grv1RJkdyqI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Grv1RJkdyqI
- gary_0 5y ago
  The part about vaccine intellectual property is around 9:20: https://youtu.be/Grv1RJkdyqI?t=565 https://youtu.be/Grv1RJkdyqI?t=565
lacker 5y ago
Well, let's look at what exactly Bill Gates said. I don't see a direct transcript; the most explicit description I can find is: Asked directly by Sky’s Sophy Ridge if he thought changing patent restrictions “would be helpful,” Gates answered with a quick and curt “no,” before continuing: “Well, there’s only so many vaccine factories in the world, and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done — moving a vaccine from, say, a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India — it’s novel. It’s only because of our grants and our expertise that can happen at all. The thing that’s holding things back in this case is not intellectual property. There’s not like some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines. You know, you’ve got to do the trials on these things, and every manufacturing process has to be looked at in a very careful way.” So, first of all, I think it's a mistake to take this and say Bill Gates is "opposed". He's just saying he doesn't think it would be helpful. Secondly, I think this rationale is very clear. He does not think waiving patents would be helpful because the intellectual property is not a bottleneck on developing vaccines, because it isn't straightforward to develop these vaccines in new factories. One fact that I think is really important to this debate - Moderna announced they are not enforcing their patents, months ago when their vaccine got approved. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/statement-moderna-intellectual-property-matters-during-covid-19 https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d... However, there aren't any new factories springing up making the Moderna vaccine without Moderna being involved. In all this news coverage discussing whether waiving patent rights is urgent, it seems pretty important that Moderna is already waiving these rights! And it isn't making any difference. I am not a vaccine expert but to me the most obvious conclusion is that Bill Gates believes what he said, that waiving patent rights won't really help that much. He might be wrong but his position really isn't obviously malicious or anything like that.
- gary_0 5y ago
  Gates quote is from: https://youtu.be/0-Ic4EN0io4?t=156 https://youtu.be/0-Ic4EN0io4?t=156 It's worth watching the whole interview. (Apologies for any geo-blocking; the link works in my region.)
DrKnow 5y ago
Read Cory Doctorow's take on this: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#g...
- SamReidHughes 5y ago
  LOL, "vaccine apartheid" Why didn't poor countries just develop their own vaccines? There's no monopoly on having your shit together.
- m33k44 5y ago
  That was a nice right up and very revealing of how things actually work hidden from the larger public. Once I met Cory Doctorow at Judge Business School at Cambridge where he gave a very eye-opening lecture on DRM. Got an opportunity to do some small talk with him. It was very interesting.
boublepop 5y ago
Waiving patents to vaccine development seems like a short term great idea, since it could make vaccines cheaper for everyone in the short term. But it’s extremely short sighted thinking. Imagine if we tried to solve transportation issues by making car companies ”sell” their cars for free. That would sure lead to a lot of happy people getting free cars, and it would definitely get a lot more cars on the road in the short term. It would also immediately bankrupt every single car company and stop every single private investment in producing cars, or research to improve them. So unless the government also stepped in an forcefully took over the entire car industry, you’d quickly see a complete collapse of new car manufacturing. I assume that Bill Gates has a good idea of the huge investments needed to develop and produce vaccines and how much of that investment is hedged on expectations of future revenue, which is only protected because someone else can’t just copy/paste your research and undercut the pricing straight away.
- JoeAltmaier 5y ago
  Hyperbolic metaphores are not worth the paper they're written on. Vaccine companies are large drug companies with many sources of income. It'd be more like (warning: another metaphore) a grocery store gave away hot dogs.
  - Nevermark 5y ago
    And how many grocery stores would stock hot dogs if they were required to give them away? The point that investment money doesn't chase big expensive research projects with low returns still holds.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      They are usually called loss leaders and they set a limit on how many you buy. The idea is to drive traffic by reducing prices on common items. Stores would stock them because other stores would and all of the customers want them. Some stores would put a hot topping and sell drinks. Others would advertise other sales driving traffic to other areas of the store.
cblconfederate 5y ago
He made all that money thanks to IP protections and fighting OSS, hard to change those habits.
tolbish 5y ago
Did you read his actual explanation or just a sensationalized news headline of what he said?
jdoerrerstl1977 5y ago
I want to say he has a lot of money to make and he has always wanted to make the world population less. Not shocking if it was a monetary problem..
- grumpitron 5y ago
  Citation needed on “wanted to make the world population less”. Much of the work his foundation does is vaccination and other health initiatives in developing countries in order to extend lives.
- companyhen 5y ago
  By "make the world population less" he means giving birth-control and sex education to those in developing countries, not killing off the people who already exist.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
atmosx 5y ago
I have on idea how this story relates to the patents directly or indirectly, but educated ppl in the medical world are not so fond of Gates. My understanding, on a high level is that the "vaccine derived polio[1][2]" was created by Bill & Melinda Gates institute[3]. The high level narrative is that some inhabitants did not want to be vaccinated, so the team of scientist and Gates thought along the linens "what do these stupid Africans known about anything?" and created a vaccine that spreads unbeknownst to the subject. So effectively their made the choice for the Africans in Chad (now spreads in Cameron). The result was the opposite: instead of vaccinate everyone by "spreading the vaccine" the created a different strain of polio. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I guess. The dangerous part IMO is when ppl think they're so "smart" they "know better". [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/02/vaccine-derived-polio-spreads-in-africa-after-defeat-of-wild-virus https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/02/v... [2]: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02501-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02501-3 [3]: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2011/10/chad-launches-a-national-immunization-campaign-against-polio https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-rel...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
phekunde 5y ago
While watching a video from The Hill[0], I came across this[1] interesting video by Russell Brand where they are discussing the unilateral decision making of the tech billionaires to "change/save the world". [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5DavuOkcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5DavuOkcM I didn't know about this channel, it just came in my youtube feed and that is how I came to know about the Bill Gates controversy; I am not from the US :) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_8owv2dtP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_8owv2dtP0

23 points by bobosha 5y ago

What could possibly explain why someone who has given away so much money on global health be opposed to something seemingly the right thing to do. I would love to get the tech community's take on it.

SamReidHughes 5y ago

He gave his reasons.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

rsouthpaw 5y ago

Watch this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Grv1RJkdyqI https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Grv1RJkdyqI

gary_0 5y ago
The part about vaccine intellectual property is around 9:20: https://youtu.be/Grv1RJkdyqI?t=565 https://youtu.be/Grv1RJkdyqI?t=565

lacker 5y ago

Well, let's look at what exactly Bill Gates said. I don't see a direct transcript; the most explicit description I can find is: Asked directly by Sky’s Sophy Ridge if he thought changing patent restrictions “would be helpful,” Gates answered with a quick and curt “no,” before continuing: “Well, there’s only so many vaccine factories in the world, and people are very serious about the safety of vaccines. And so moving something that had never been done — moving a vaccine from, say, a [Johnson & Johnson] factory into a factory in India — it’s novel. It’s only because of our grants and our expertise that can happen at all. The thing that’s holding things back in this case is not intellectual property. There’s not like some idle vaccine factory, with regulatory approval, that makes magically safe vaccines. You know, you’ve got to do the trials on these things, and every manufacturing process has to be looked at in a very careful way.” So, first of all, I think it's a mistake to take this and say Bill Gates is "opposed". He's just saying he doesn't think it would be helpful. Secondly, I think this rationale is very clear. He does not think waiving patents would be helpful because the intellectual property is not a bottleneck on developing vaccines, because it isn't straightforward to develop these vaccines in new factories. One fact that I think is really important to this debate - Moderna announced they are not enforcing their patents, months ago when their vaccine got approved. https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-details/statement-moderna-intellectual-property-matters-during-covid-19 https://investors.modernatx.com/news-releases/news-release-d... However, there aren't any new factories springing up making the Moderna vaccine without Moderna being involved. In all this news coverage discussing whether waiving patent rights is urgent, it seems pretty important that Moderna is already waiving these rights! And it isn't making any difference. I am not a vaccine expert but to me the most obvious conclusion is that Bill Gates believes what he said, that waiving patent rights won't really help that much. He might be wrong but his position really isn't obviously malicious or anything like that.

gary_0 5y ago
Gates quote is from: https://youtu.be/0-Ic4EN0io4?t=156 https://youtu.be/0-Ic4EN0io4?t=156 It's worth watching the whole interview. (Apologies for any geo-blocking; the link works in my region.)

DrKnow 5y ago

Read Cory Doctorow's take on this: https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#gates-foundation https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#g...

SamReidHughes 5y ago
LOL, "vaccine apartheid" Why didn't poor countries just develop their own vaccines? There's no monopoly on having your shit together.
m33k44 5y ago
That was a nice right up and very revealing of how things actually work hidden from the larger public. Once I met Cory Doctorow at Judge Business School at Cambridge where he gave a very eye-opening lecture on DRM. Got an opportunity to do some small talk with him. It was very interesting.

boublepop 5y ago

Waiving patents to vaccine development seems like a short term great idea, since it could make vaccines cheaper for everyone in the short term. But it’s extremely short sighted thinking. Imagine if we tried to solve transportation issues by making car companies ”sell” their cars for free. That would sure lead to a lot of happy people getting free cars, and it would definitely get a lot more cars on the road in the short term. It would also immediately bankrupt every single car company and stop every single private investment in producing cars, or research to improve them. So unless the government also stepped in an forcefully took over the entire car industry, you’d quickly see a complete collapse of new car manufacturing. I assume that Bill Gates has a good idea of the huge investments needed to develop and produce vaccines and how much of that investment is hedged on expectations of future revenue, which is only protected because someone else can’t just copy/paste your research and undercut the pricing straight away.

JoeAltmaier 5y ago
Hyperbolic metaphores are not worth the paper they're written on. Vaccine companies are large drug companies with many sources of income. It'd be more like (warning: another metaphore) a grocery store gave away hot dogs.
- Nevermark 5y ago
  And how many grocery stores would stock hot dogs if they were required to give them away? The point that investment money doesn't chase big expensive research projects with low returns still holds.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    They are usually called loss leaders and they set a limit on how many you buy. The idea is to drive traffic by reducing prices on common items. Stores would stock them because other stores would and all of the customers want them. Some stores would put a hot topping and sell drinks. Others would advertise other sales driving traffic to other areas of the store.

cblconfederate 5y ago

He made all that money thanks to IP protections and fighting OSS, hard to change those habits.

tolbish 5y ago

Did you read his actual explanation or just a sensationalized news headline of what he said?

jdoerrerstl1977 5y ago

I want to say he has a lot of money to make and he has always wanted to make the world population less. Not shocking if it was a monetary problem..

grumpitron 5y ago
Citation needed on “wanted to make the world population less”. Much of the work his foundation does is vaccination and other health initiatives in developing countries in order to extend lives.
companyhen 5y ago
By "make the world population less" he means giving birth-control and sex education to those in developing countries, not killing off the people who already exist.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

atmosx 5y ago

I have on idea how this story relates to the patents directly or indirectly, but educated ppl in the medical world are not so fond of Gates. My understanding, on a high level is that the "vaccine derived polio[1][2]" was created by Bill & Melinda Gates institute[3]. The high level narrative is that some inhabitants did not want to be vaccinated, so the team of scientist and Gates thought along the linens "what do these stupid Africans known about anything?" and created a vaccine that spreads unbeknownst to the subject. So effectively their made the choice for the Africans in Chad (now spreads in Cameron). The result was the opposite: instead of vaccinate everyone by "spreading the vaccine" the created a different strain of polio. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, I guess. The dangerous part IMO is when ppl think they're so "smart" they "know better". [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/02/vaccine-derived-polio-spreads-in-africa-after-defeat-of-wild-virus https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/sep/02/v... [2]: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02501-3 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02501-3 [3]: https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-releases/2011/10/chad-launches-a-national-immunization-campaign-against-polio https://www.gatesfoundation.org/ideas/media-center/press-rel...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

phekunde 5y ago

While watching a video from The Hill[0], I came across this[1] interesting video by Russell Brand where they are discussing the unilateral decision making of the tech billionaires to "change/save the world". [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5DavuOkcM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZ5DavuOkcM I didn't know about this channel, it just came in my youtube feed and that is how I came to know about the Bill Gates controversy; I am not from the US :) [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_8owv2dtP0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_8owv2dtP0