> "Tax payers" also means nothing when vaccines are developed in one or a few countries but sold to all countries in the world. Pretty sure Zimbabwean tax payer

> "Tax payers" also means nothing when vaccines are developed in one or a few countries but sold to all countries in the world. Pretty sure Zimbabwean tax payers didn't fund the Pfizer vaccines. Your first point notwithstanding, I don't think this is relevant. Regardless of whether R&D was funded by US taxpayers or German taxpayers or martian lizard people, it means there is no R&D cost for the company to recoup. The US could theoretically (!) try to recoup their costs from foreign governments whose countries benefitted from a cheap, US-funded vaccine, but that becomes a diplomatic issue.