The pandemic has been a windfall for Big Pharma. The Trudeau government was planning to roll out a national pharmacare program. Central to that effort was The Patented Medicine Prices Review Board. Tom Walkom writes:
Set up in 1987, the board’s job is to prevent pharmaceutical companies from charging exorbitant prices for new drugs. It does so by comparing prices charged in Canada with those in other countries.
Up to now, the board has compared Canada to high-cost countries like the U.S. and Switzerland. Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have promised to use lower-cost countries, like Australia and Norway, as comparators instead. Until last year, Big Pharma seemed an easy target.Now the drug companies have countries around the world over a barrel:
Nor, it seems, does Ottawa have the power to prevent the European Union from unilaterally interfering with the export of European-made vaccines to Canada.
Some in the EU are calling for such export controls. They argue that since companies like Pfizer and the British firm AstraZeneca profited from EU support, Europeans should be first in line when their vaccines become available — regardless of any commercial deals signed with outsider nations like Canada.Now countries in Europe are fighting over who should get more of the vaccines. And Big Pharma is pushing the Canadian government for tax breaks.
When the Mulroney government sold Connaught Labs decades ago, it left us to the mercy of Big Pharma. The pandemic has taught us that we must manufacture our own medical supplies and vaccines.
Once again, COVID has exposed how fragile our global economy is.
Image: Connaught Fund University Of Toronto
10 comments:
Well the first horse (herd?) is out of the stable but it looks like we are trying to play catch up.
https://nrc.canada.ca/en/covid-19-response-building-infrastructure
One has to admire Harper: It takes real dedication to be wrong on all policy decisions.
Harper is now an some 'economic' advisor committee to advise the Kenny Gov't. I fear Alberta is in for even more trouble.
The chickens have come home to roost, jrk. And some folks still believe in ideas that are obviously for the birds.
My gut is saying that we are slowly getting hosed with these vaccines. Not in the sense of overpaying (we might be but I have no idea), but in the sense of not getting enough vaccine in a timely manner. Canada is small potatoes and we are at the mercy of pharmaceutical companies. We take what they give us. Trudeau tells us that the government is talking to the Phizer CEO daily, but I wonder what he is saying.
And that is precisely why we need the capacity to produce our own vaccines, Gordie.
The vaccine problem is the latest example of a broader failure of Canadian governance - resilience. We have evolved into a "just in time" world where profits are maximized and all is well until it isn't.
Mulroney became a true disciple of privatization and deregulation, the cornerstones of Hayek's and Friedman's neoliberal ideology. Look at the utter mess that spread through Canada's aviation industry as, one by one, airlines (often the better ones) succumbed to mergers until we had only one major left - Air Canada. Aviation service to the north, so vital for opening up that part of Canada, withered. Prices skyrocketed.
Mulroney hedged on privatization of Connaught Labs with what turned out to be meaningless prohibitions against taking the business end out of Canada. In due course it was sold to France and we've been dependent on foreign companies ever since.
In the Globe today, Alan Bernstein, head of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, says we need to get that critical capacity to produce vaccines back, now. “We need domestic vaccine production capacity in the country for the next pandemic, and also for this pandemic. If there are variants arising, we may be designing second, third-generation vaccines and vaccinating the population for the next two or three years.”
It comes down to resilience, a multi-faceted area. Whether it's essential medical and pharmaceutical production to wholesale rehabilitation and replacement of core infrastructure that is now failing, the price of neglect and failure could be devastating not only to the country and our people but also our economy.
We have nothing but trouble ahead if we cannot get past our "everyday low taxes" mentality. Taxes are what fund resilience. Yes, it means sometimes having to pay more but that's not the issue. The disruptions in vaccine supply aren't linked to some refusal to pay the going price.
In the past, Mound, we were willing to pay for goods and services we deemed essential. Whether it was the CBC, Trans Canada Airlines, or The Canadian National Railway, there were things we decided we couldn't live without.
In a world facing future pandemics, we must produce what we need to deal with them.
What grinds my gears is how the establishment media parrots the Con story that the government is to blame for vaccine supply shortages. This is simply false.
Private sector manufacturing errors and profiteering are to blame for vaccine shortages in Canada and Europe. Pfizer's Belgium plant supplies non-US countries and that plant is being retooled to increase production. Why wasn't that done when phase 3 trials showed promise? Why isn't Pfizer supplying Canada from its US plant? Moderna is also short-shipping Canada and Europe, but hasn't explained why.
The Canadian media loves to point to Israel's vaccination rate and ask why Canada can't do the same. They don't tell you that Israel is receiving preferential shipments from Pfizer's Belgium plant because it agreed to pay twice the going rate and give Pfizer access to the nation's healthcare database, stoking privacy fears. You need to read the British press for that. Imagine the uproar if the Trudeau government agreed to similar terms.
The private sector works best when there's competition. The sooner we approve AZ-O, J&J, Novavax and others, the better. Of course, it would be best to still have Connaught, but that ship has sailed.
Cap
Those who sing the praises on the free market never acknowledge its weaknesses, Cap. As with everything, there are always weaknesses.
In the past, Mound, we were willing to pay for goods and services we deemed essential. Whether it was the CBC, Trans Canada Airlines, or The Canadian National Railway, there were things we decided we couldn't live without.
What we deem essential seems to vary mainly due to it's financial importance.
Financial importance is having hard time justifying itself.
The very basics of our world wide economies is been taken to task.
TB
Precisely, TB. Cost is less important than value.
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