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vaccine inequity
Once Free, Covid-19 Vaccines Now Cost Up to $200 for Uninsured in US
"What's at stake is we are reverting back to a system where a person's financial ability to be able to pay will determine their ability to be healthy."
Sep 03, 2024
The latest coronavirus vaccine costs up to $200 for the roughly 25 million uninsured people in the U.S., due to the defunding of a federal program that previously covered the costs, The Washington Postreported Tuesday.
It's the "latest tear in the safety net" as pandemic-era programs wind down, the newspaper reported. Covid-19 vaccines were free for everyone in the U.S. in 2021 and 2022, per federal policy. However, in January, congressional Republicans negotiated a deal that rescinded $6.1 billion in emergency coronavirus relief funding, which killed the Bridge Access Program, launched in April 2023, that covered the cost for the uninsured.
The latest version of the Covid-19 vaccine was approved on August 22 and costs just over $200 for uninsured patients at CVS pharmacies in Nashville and St. Louis—examples cited by the Post.
Raynard Washington, head of the Mecklenburg County health department in North Carolina and chair of the Big Cities Health Coalition, said that vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech should lower their prices to make the shots more affordable for health agencies.
"What's at stake is we are reverting back to a system where a person's financial ability to be able to pay will determine their ability to be healthy," Washington said.
News of the lack of affordable access to the Covid-19 vaccine for uninsured people led to outrage on social media, with one X user asking "Is this the way to keep the rest of us safe?" and another declaring: "This makes me want to scream."
People covered by Medicare—which insures Americans over the age of 65—and Medicaid can still receive Covid-19 vaccines for free. But roughly 25 million people in the U.S. under the age of 65 are uninsured and left to pay the sky-high rates; people of color are disproportionately represented in the ranks of the uninsured.
Moderna, Pfizer, and BioNTech have profited off of the sale of the vaccines even though U.S. and European taxpayers heavily subsidized their development. The companies told the Post that free vaccines would be available through patient assistance programs, but provided no details.
The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it had identified $62 million to purchase Covid-19 vaccines for distribution to health agencies, but officials say that's a "sliver" of what's needed, the paper reported.
The Biden administration in its budget requests repeatedly tried to establish a Vaccines for Adults program aimed at providing shots, including Covid-19 boosters, to uninsured adults, but the efforts stalled in Congress. The proposal was based on a federal Vaccines for Children program that's been active since the 1990s.
The new Covid-19 vaccine is recommended for everyone 6 months of age or older. It includes a level of protection against the KP.2 variant that accounted for roughly one quarter of U.S. cases this summer.
The public health emergency for Covid-19 ended in May 2023 but the virus has killed tens of thousands of people in the U.S. since then and can cause long-term complications.
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Sanders, Dems Tell Biden to Learn From Covid Amid Pandemic Treaty Talks
"A fairer, more equitable response to the next public health outbreak is in everyone's interest."
Mar 19, 2024
This week's high-stakes negotiations on a new global treaty inspired by the Covid-19 crisis "present an historic opportunity to prepare for future pandemics, to protect lives and livelihoods, and to demonstrate political leadership the world will long remember," a dozen progressive U.S. lawmakers wrote to President Joe Biden on Tuesday.
The members of Congress told Biden that "as the U.S. participates in the negotiation of the pandemic accord at the World Health Organization (WHO), we urge you to push for strong, binding equitable access standards to ensure that tests, treatments, and vaccines for the next global public health threat are available to everyone who needs them as soon as possible."
"You can help make sure the next pandemic is shorter and less deadly than the last."
"Nearly 15 million people died during the first two years of the pandemic," they noted. "Most tragically, millions of people died needlessly after the vaccines were developed, but before they became widely available in low-and-middle income countries. Major manufacturers chose not to share the vaccine recipe to expand global production."
"But vaccine inequity did not just hurt people abroad. Major gaps in access to vaccines globally also increased the risk of deadly new variants that changed the course of the pandemic at home," the lawmakers highlighted, stressing that "we must act on the lessons learned from the Covid-19 pandemic."
The letter was led by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) along with Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). They were joined by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Peter Welch (D-Vt.), as well as Reps. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.).
During the WHO talks on pandemic prevention, preparedness, and response—which began Monday and are scheduled to run through March 28—they want the Biden administration to champion three foundational commitments:
- Pharmaceutical companies should not be allowed to charge outrageous prices for products developed with taxpayer dollars;
- When the public funds information that can help end a pandemic, it should not be kept a secret; and
- The U.S. should support countries that take steps to increase access to pandemic products.
The letter specifically calls out Pfizer and Moderna, asserting that the latter "serves as a powerful reminder for why American leadership is so critical," because the Massachusetts-based company "worked hand-in-hand with scientists at the U.S. National Institutes of Health" to invent one of the multiple coronavirus vaccines created during the pandemic.
"U.S. taxpayers spent $12 billion to research, develop, and procure the vaccine," the letter explains. "Yet Moderna refused to share its technology with other manufacturers to increase global production, charged some poorer countries more for doses than wealthy countries, and then quadrupled the price of the Covid vaccine to $128—at a time when it costs just $2.85 to manufacture the vaccine."
"A fairer, more equitable response to the next public health outbreak is in everyone's interest," the lawmakers wrote to Biden. "By supporting strong, binding equitable access standards, you can help make sure the next pandemic is shorter and less deadly than the last."
Reporting on the negotiations Monday, Axiospointed out that "a key sticking point is whether countries must provide viral specimens or genome sequences to a global repository managed by the World Health Organization, which would enable others to use that information to create vaccines, diagnostic tests, and treatments."
Nithin Ramakrishnan of the global advocacy group Third World Network told the outlet that the treaty's current draft "serves the interests of developed countries and their biotech industries by forcing developing countries to share biological materials and information without adequate legal certainty of benefit sharing."
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As WHO Ends Emergency, World Urged Not to Repeat 'Mistakes of This Pandemic in the Next'
"The global response to Covid-19 failed the world's most vulnerable, prioritizing windfall profits ahead of public health," said one expert, calling on world leaders to "make structural changes in global health."
May 05, 2023
The World Health Organization's declaration Friday that Covid-19 is no longer a global health emergency elicited fresh calls for learning from the pandemic and dramatically expanding access to prevention and treatment for diseases in the future.
"Covid-19 may no longer be classified as the highest level of international emergency, but the virus has not gone away," said Dr. Mohga Kamal-Yanni, policy co-lead of the People's Vaccine Alliance, a global coalition working toward equitable access to medical technologies that help to prevent and respond to Covid-19 and future pandemics.
"There are billions of people in developing countries who still cannot access affordable Covid-19 tests and treatments," Kamal-Yanni stressed. "They need action from governments to remove the intellectual property barriers that prevent the widespread production of generic medicines."
"Rich countries behaved shamefully in this pandemic, upholding pharmaceutical monopolies and grabbing vaccines, tests, and medicines for their people, pushing developing countries to the back in the line."
WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that while the agency has documented almost 7 million deaths from the virus, "we know the toll is several times higher—at least 20 million." A study published last year in Nature and cited by the People's Vaccine Alliance estimates that 1.3 million fewer people would have died by the end of 2021 if Covid-19 vaccines were equitably distributed.
"Rich countries behaved shamefully in this pandemic, upholding pharmaceutical monopolies and grabbing vaccines, tests, and medicines for their people, pushing developing countries to the back in the line," said Kamal-Yanni. "And pharmaceutical companies are the biggest winners, achieving the biggest profit from a single medical product in history, while people died without access."
Ahead of the WHO announcement but in the wake of the annual general meetings of Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Moderna, and Pfizer, Amnesty International health adviser Tamaryn Nelson on Thursday lamented that the pharmaceutical giants declined to "right their wrongs" by passing resolutions to facilitate the universal distribution of Covid-19 vaccines.
"For the past three years, those at the helm of Big Pharma companies have seen earnings soar, while people in low- and lower-middle-income countries are still struggling to access lifesaving medicines," Nelson noted. "While their efforts to speedily develop Covid-19 vaccines should be recognized, it's clear pharmaceutical companies have failed in their human rights responsibilities when it comes to ensuring equal access—and continue to do so. Why aren't investors holding them to account?"
"With reports that Pfizer and Moderna are considering quadrupling the price of each Covid-19 vaccine in some countries, only 25% of people in low-income countries are now fully vaccinated and millions are still waiting for the first dose," she continued, calling the allocation of the shots "one of the worst examples of global inequality to date."
According to Nelson, "It's time for investors to ensure these companies are making structural changes with immediate effect to ensure the world can withstand future pandemics collectively, without leaving anyone behind."
\u201cWHO has declared the global health emergency over, but Covid hasn't gone away. Precautions are still necessary for many, and we must fix what the pandemic has broken and exposed in our health system and society.\u201d— Dr. Tom Frieden (@Dr. Tom Frieden) 1683301986
Kamal-Yanni argued that tackling future crises will require more actively involving people from lower-income nations.
"The institutions set up to support developing countries, like COVAX and ACT-A, failed to involve developing countries in their creation or decision-making, and failed to deliver an equitable response," she said. "For future pandemics, preparation and response must be led by the Global South, instead of creating more global platforms dominated by donors."
"People in developing countries should never again wait for the 'good will' of rich countries, nor charitable actions of pharmaceutical companies," she asserted. "The world needs transformative commitments in the Pandemic Treaty and International Health Regulations to ensure knowledge and technology are shared, remove intellectual property barriers, and to support medical research and manufacturing in developing countries."
Negotiators aim to finalize a draft of the Pandemic Treaty for consideration by the 77th World Health Assembly in 2024.
"Just as with HIV, the global response to Covid-19 failed the world's most vulnerable, prioritizing windfall profits ahead of public health," said Kamal-Yanni. "World leaders must now learn from the last three years, and make structural changes in global health. Or else, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of this pandemic in the next."
Dr. Uché Blackstock, a former emergency medicine professor who works to end bias and racism in healthcare, tweeted Friday that "it's truly unfortunate that both domestically and globally, other than vaccines—which I'm truly grateful to science for—there have been no significant improvement/investments in our public health infrastructure to keep people and their communities safe."
\u201c-indoor air quality h/t @amydiehl\u201d— uch\u00e9 blackstock, md (@uch\u00e9 blackstock, md) 1683294129
The Covid-19 crisis could have led to massive investments in health workers, workplace protections, and paid leave, Blackstock said in response to the WHO announcement. The United States could have shifted to universal healthcare and joined other nations of the Global North in promoting vaccine equity.
"It felt like THIS was our opportunity to do better!!" she added, also circulating a graphic shared by Dr. Madhu Pai showing that the 2.3 billion people who remain unvaccinated against Covid-19 are largely concentrated in low- and middle-income countries.
Pai also pointed to an "important" piece published Thursday in Science titled "Cascading Failures in Covid-19 Vaccine Equity."
\u201cEven as WHO declared the end of Covid emergency today, read this important @ScienceMagazine article by Lavery et al @EmoryRollins\n\n"The stark gap between the pervasive rhetoric about equity and the dismal reality of the global vaccine distribution demands a collective reckoning"\u2026\u201d— Madhu Pai, MD, PhD (@Madhu Pai, MD, PhD) 1683302884
Noting that "the proliferation of equity rhetoric does not appear to be matched by corresponding rates of progress in reducing global disparities," a trio of U.S.-based experts wrote for Science that "the stark gap between the pervasive rhetoric about equity and the dismal reality of the global vaccine distribution" the past three years "demands a collective reckoning."
"Expansive rhetoric and empty promises have surprising staying power," they added. "If we wish equity to have anything more than allegorical value, we must take the concept more seriously, beginning with a disciplined and deliberate examination of the equity-deficit cascade."
As Common Dreams reported throughout the Covid-19 crisis, experts have warned that preventing future pandemics requires not only improvements in healthcare systems but also global land use reforms—from conservation efforts to changes in agricultural practices—to stop the spillover of diseases from animals to humans.
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