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Indonesia Stops Sharing Avian Virus Samples
dankrabach writes "Indonesia has apparently decided to play the IP game, with the world's health at stake. The country, one of the hardest-hit by avian flu, has stopped submitting virus samples to the World Health Organization, and is negotiating to sell them to an American drug company that makes the vaccine. They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines. Logical to me, given the rules of the game; however, can't we come up with some GPL'ish license to free any product based on this data?"
I can really see why they feel slighted - after all, collection of samples for the WHO is not a process without its costs and hazards. It's not like they're collecting bread mold or something.
Perhaps approaching the WHO looking for some form of compensation for sample collection could be attempted. Perhaps it already has been. But anyone who has dealt with a global scale NGO, especially a UN agency, knows that the bureaucracy involved makes even the most overburdened of national government bureaucracies look like a model of efficiency.
Still, though, I have to wonder about the claims that Indonesia cannot afford to purchase the vaccines. Indonesia is one of the most populous countries in the world, and seems more than able to afford many of the trappings of a modern industrialized nation. Their GDP is close to a trillion dollars US. Is it possible that a certain amount of their stand on this issue is posturing? Or to the benefit of one particular agency or department of their government? Follow the money to its destination and more would begin to be clear.
I'm also sick of paying for their coal, oil, diamonds, and other natural resources and cheap labor. Indonesia should just give to the developed world for free. We have earned our empire and their tribute.
For good or for bad, Indonesia is a big producer of new strains of avian flu in humans. Their government wants to turn that into something they can exploit for profit or a lever to get the resultant vaccines for cheap for their poor country.
It seems odd that we're getting a liberal argument for a poor country to give these samples for free to pharmaceutical companies of the developed world to make a buck. I have no problem with the pharmas trying to make a buck or Indonesia exploiting their new industry of incubating new strains of avain flu for us to harvest.
From the summary:
They feel slighted when they give away such samples, but then cannot afford the patented vaccines.
And the Shah of Iran in 1973, just before the oil crisis:
"Of course [the world price of oil] is going to rise," the Shah told the New York Times in 1973. "Certainly! And how...; You [Western nations] increased the price of wheat you sell us by 300%, and the same for sugar and cement...; You buy our crude oil and sell it back to us, redefined as petrochemicals, at a hundred times the price you've paid to us...; It's only fair that, from now on, you should pay more for oil. Let's say ten times more."
No real point. Just found the similarities interesting.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
Playing devil's advocate, I think a bird flu pandemic is exactly what this planet needs right now. We've added a billion people and welcomed two billion+ populated nations to the industrialized world and we're destroying most of our natural resources. I think a pandemic that could potentially reduce this burden, especially in SE Asia where those countries seem hell bent on destroying the environment in just about every way. Call me sick, but I don't have faith in humanity to reel itself in when it comes to development and consuming more and more in the future. The only solution is fewer consumers.
As a long-time Jakarta resident I have but one comment to make on this sorry state of affairs - whatever money changes hands, it will only go to enrich certain members of the greedy ruling elite in this corruption-riddled country. The poor will see neither monetary relief nor cheap vaccine.