It’s conceivable that some research findings could be nefariously turned to harmful purposes (I first typed that as “porpoises”, which suggests a caffeine deficit needing attention). But the theoretical risk is far outweighed by the need for transparency, leading to faster development and approval of effective vaccines in healthy competition. Imagine also the hay antivaxers could make of secrecy in vaccine development. These are people already madly flogging the idea that Bill Gates wants to microchip vaccine recipients on the pathway to world depopulation.
Vaccines are profitable for pharmaceutical companies. However, vaccine sales make up something like 2-3% of overall pharma revenue, so it’s not a huge chunk. And something antivaxers conveniently overlook is that if drug companies stopped making vaccines, their profits would soar from the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases, making possible greatly augmented sales of antibiotics and other medications used to treat these diseases.
Here’s my nascent viral conspiracy theory: Gilead Pharmaceuticals is secretly plotting to sabotage coronavirus vaccine trials to protect sales of remdesivir.*
I kind of see where the OP is coming from; in a Machiavellian sense, if say… the US had developed an effective vaccine or treatment for COVID-19 in the course of other research (like say… remdesivir), or schemed up an effective treatment that we could have used earlier on in the pandemic, in a geopolitical power sense it would have possibly behooved us to keep that close to our chests and not share it. The thinking being that if the rest of the world is ravaged by COVID-19 and their economies crash harder than the US economy as a result of us having the vaccine/treatment, it positions us better in the future economically with respect to those countries.
Now I’m not saying it’s right, but I can see why it might be in our benefit. Similarly, and more sinisterly, I can see along the same lines why the Chinese might have wanted to keep information about the pandemic under wraps as long as they could; this would position them to be recovering economically earlier than the nations they consider to be their competition (i.e. the West), and to take advantage of our economically prostrate situation.
I thought if we learned anything from covid, it’s that world funding for vaccine research, and corresponding collaboration is unfortunately inadequate.
Mankind has a shared threat that we were not prepared to handle, and we collectively need to get our shit together.
The idea that we should now decide that a problem that the world cannot quickly solve is best solved buy dropping collaboration and un-pooling resources is taking the piss.
I cannot see why it would be in the US’ benefit, since economics is not zero sum.
I would prefer to live in a wealthy country than one marginally less ravaged than others.
While some terrible errors of judgement and injustices happened in the early days of handling this crisis, there is no evidence of this being kept secret for more than the 10 day interval between the epidemiologists’ report and informing the WHO.
Not much of a head start and it really doesn’t explain the very different progression in the US.
Also, while a lot of the media seems to be JAQ-ing this idea of keeping an epidemic secret, it doesn’t stand up to a moment’s scrutiny. Yes a few sporadic reports can be kept quiet, and that’s indeed what happened.
But once you have a full blown epidemic, the circle of people affected in any way gets very big, very fast. And if you don’t tell the entire public to take measures to contain its spread, it’s going to explode.
I’ve already gone on record with my conspiracy theory: Covid19 is a plot by the Los Angeles Xtreme to cancel the 2020 XFL season so they could retain their 2001 championship.
“Should we keep our hole-plugging techniques secret from the people on the other side of the boat?”
A disease that ravages other countries in the world will affect Americans even if we have a vaccine - there will always be people that the vaccine doesn’t work for or who can not receive a vaccine for medical reasons. For that matter, it is possible that a vaccinated person who would not get the disease if exposed to one carrier would get the disease if he encounters many carriers - so it’s in everyone’s interest to reduce the total number of carriers worldwide.
But no, it doesn’t. The United States is not better off if the rest of the world is poor; the United States is better off if the rest of the world is rich. Rich people buy more stuff, create more cool things you can use, and make for more stables allies.
Furthermore, poor and sick people can infect you, too. Vaccines work better if EVERYONE has them.
Hiding the vaccine from foreign rivals, furtermore, only motivates them to take actions towards stealing it.
“Could you patent the sun?” – Jonas Salk, when asked if he planned to try and claim a patent for the polio vaccine.
Salk hated the celebrity and attention it brought to him, and usually preferred to do his research in private – but he didn’t feel that one could claim ownership to a vaccine.
I just had the unpleasant realization that this exact scenario may well play out.
Hundreds of teams around the world are racing to develop a vaccine. And whoever develops the vaccine, it will rapidly be available everywhere.
Except… if the US wins that race. Because there is zero doubt in my mind that the current administration would care only about political gain and not what is in the best interest of the American people, or saving lives. They would love to say “America beat everyone because ‘we’ developed the vaccine!” and the idea of other countries begging the US for something gives them wet dreams.
I can only hope that in that scenario there would be scientists willing to leak data out of the US.
That’s not the question to ask though, the question is whether the government could prevent vaccines being shipped.
I don’t know, but I would guess “yes”. We’ve had plenty of shenanigans with PPE imports being seized and redistributed. Blocking stuff going out from specific manufacturer(s) is comparatively simple, and they won’t care whether they have the legal right to do it.
Does it matter who discovers it? Regardless, it will be manufactured in either China or India most likely. Like almost all our current pharmaceuticals, I think. So it’s a silly to think who discovers it is the key.
The US, very publicly hijacked an order for N95 masks purchased by, and being shipped to Canada, at the height of a pandemic. Now, how shy do you think China and India will be to do the same? They are ALL three playing the same tribal political games, after all.
What? How are other countries playing the same tribal political games?
Despite what the OP says, the most plausible bad faith actor here is the US, and I take no pleasure in saying that.
Yes, if manufacturing output is insufficient, the primary manufacturing country might prioritize their own citizens, for a while.
But deliberate withholding? I’d take that bet for any country other than the US.
Is it possible to reverse-engineer a vaccine once it is available, and if so, how quickly? IOW, can another country just copy it once they have their hands on a working sample? Recent news reports have mentioned that the US seems to be investing in getting the distribution channels and ancillary products prepared and available for quicker widespread inoculations. This struck me as unusual, considering how uncoordinated we’ve been with everything else. Maybe the idea is: even if someone else discovers it, we can still take credit by replicating it and getting our people inoculated faster.
You know, it’s really a shame that this view of the US is so common worldwide. And while I’ve met many Canadians, Australians and Europeans in my life who poked fun at the US’s greed and world domination fantasies, the underlying context was always that we were all allied and on the same side on important global issues.
I’ve never been one to drape myself with the American flag, and really don’t even understand why we have countries. But the fact of the matter is that much of the world’s innovations over the past century have come out of the US, and there has never been any reluctance to share them with the rest of the world. In fact, many new products and improvements developed in the US are often available and implemented in other countries even before they are domestically. And sure, there is always an underlying profit motive, but that is what drives the investment and resources to fund these advancements.
I hope that the idea that the US could develop a vaccine, and then withhold it from the rest of the world, is just a temporary reaction to the current president. Would anyone have thought this when Obama was president?
Reaction to the current reality, not just the president.
Let me be clear: in my native UK you can often encounter some loudmouth in a pub blaming the US for all the world’s problems, and as recently as 5-6 years ago, I would have defended America against such cynicism (while acknowledging yes, there have been foreign policy atrocities and of course the original sin of slavery; similar to the UK).
But the conservative right in the US is just fucking nuts right now and is dragging the whole world backwards. Trump just happens to be the guy that stopped dogwhistling that group and started fully embracing them.
And it’s not just words at this point. I hate it when people say things like “There can be much worse things than Trump’s tweets”. I don’t give a shit about his tweets. I care about the actions of the US government.
And, based on current form, I would be perfectly happy to wager that they would at least *attempt *to withhold a vaccine for political leverage (and then dole it out country-by-country based on who’s playing ball). Whether it’s logistically possible to do that is another question.