 So, believe it or not, there was a time when Howard Dean, former presidential candidate turned DNC chair, was actually fairly progressive, but now he is cartoonishly evil. And when he started to become evil is precisely when he became a lobbyist. Excuse me, he's not technically a lobbyist because he doesn't actually have to register as a lobbyist somehow, but what he does, it looks very, very conspicuously similar to what lobbyists do. So, he's not necessarily technically lobbying for Big Pharma, but he is advocating on behalf of Big Pharma, and he's using his influence that he has within the Democratic Party to pressure Joe Biden to do something that isn't just stupid, but it's downright evil. He's trying to get Joe Biden to oppose releasing the intellectual property rights of the COVID-19 vaccines so that way other countries can manufacture generic versions of the vaccines. It's really the only chance that we have at vaccinating the entire human population before mutations and variations pop up. So, this isn't just one of those things where, okay, well, you know what? I don't have to care about other developing countries and whether or not their people are vaccinated because I have my vaccine. That's not the way that this works because so long as the virus continues to spread that increases the likelihood that new variants could pop up that are resistant to the vaccine. And again, I've said this once, I'll say it again. If that happens, we are all screwed. It's back to square one. And Howard Dean here is trying to influence Joe Biden to make that more likely. So, as Lee Fong of the Intercept reports, Howard Dean, the former Progressive Champion, is calling on President Joe Biden to reject a special intellectual property waiver that would allow low-cost, generic coronavirus vaccines to be produced to meet the needs of low-income countries. Currently, a small number of companies hold the formulas for the COVID-19 vaccines, limiting distribution to many parts of the world. IP protections aren't the cause of vaccination delays Dean claimed in a column for Barron's last month. Every drug manufacturing facility on the planet that's capable of churning out COVID-19 shots is already doing so. Creating a new medicine is a costly proposition, wrote Dean. Companies would never invest hundreds of millions in research and development if rivals could simply copy their drug formulas and create knockoffs. Dean's claim that global vaccine manufacturing is already at capacity is patently false. Foreign firms have lined up to offer pharmaceutical plants to produce vaccines but have been forced to enter into lengthy negotiations under terms set by the intellectual property owners. The waiver, however, would allow generic drug producers to begin copying the vaccine without delay. Many of the manufacturing plants prepared to mass-produce low-cost vaccines are centered in India, which has committed to supplying the poorest countries in the world. But the waiver petition, Dean wrote, is unreasonable and disingenuous. It's a ruse to benefit India's own industry at the expense of patients everywhere. President Biden would be wise to reject it. The strident opposition to the waiver, which is supported by an international coalition of human rights organizations, as well as a growing cohort of congressional Democrats, may surprise Dean's liberal supporters. But while Dean boasts a long history of support for single-payer health insurance coverage and government intervention into lowering domestic drug prices, he has reversed his positions on virtually every major progressive health policy issue since moving to work in the world of corporate influence peddling. Dean is not a registered lobbyist, though he works in the lobbying division of Dentons, a law and lobbying firm, and is rhetoric in the column follows the firm's recent pattern of advocacy. Dentons touts its work on drug intellectual property issues, noting on its website that it has represented Pfizer and other firms in the recent past. Despite publicly funded research and huge infusions of government cash for the development and delivery of vaccines, drug makers have carefully guarded their monopoly on the intellectual property rights and signaled to investors that they plan to soon hike prices. The pharmaceutical industry, including representatives of Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson and Johnson have pushed the Biden administration to oppose the intellectual property waiver petition and go further to even impose sanctions on any country that moves to manufacture vaccines without their express permission. So the reason why Howard Dean wants to deny developing countries the ability to very cheaply reproduce the COVID vaccines is because the clients that he represents, they wouldn't be able to profit off of it. And in his defense of his position, he kind of inadvertently reveals why the motives here are so grotesque, why capitalism is incompatible with human health or the flourishing of human health, I should say. So this is what he says here. Creating new medicine is a costly proposition. Companies would never invest if rivals could simply copy their drug formulas and create knockoffs. Isn't that the problem though, Howard? Isn't that the issue? Do you see what anti-capitalists have been saying now? Can you at least maybe try to sympathize with our position? It shouldn't be about making money when it comes to public health, medicine. These things should not be commodified industries. The COVID vaccine should not be a commodified thing. That's the issue. Making money off of public health when you introduce that profit motive that creates a perverse incentive to not actually want to make people well and prevent them from getting COVID-19, but to profit off of it. These companies didn't manufacture these vaccines out of the goodness of their hearts. They saw an opportunity to make money and see we, our tax dollars, funded the development of these vaccines. So obviously we should have a say. It's just honestly the way that he defends this. He claims that the arguments in favor of the waiver are disingenuous. You're disingenuous and you're disingenuity and you're influence, the level of influence that he has in the Democratic party as a high ranking former official, the implications are broad. If he gets what he wants, then how much longer will developing countries have to wait? Will you admit that you're wrong if we don't vaccinate people quick enough and that leads to the spread of new mutations that are resistant to the vaccines that exist? Will you ever admit that you're wrong? Will you ever admit that it was about the profit motive and not actually about public health? Of course you won't because Howard Dean is quite literally a corporate chill, literally a chill, but don't call him a lobbyist because that's a slur to him. If you call him a lobbyist, that's super offensive. He's not lobbying. He only works in the lobbying division of a company that represents Pfizer. Definitely not a lobbyist though. Don't call him that. Howard Dean is absolute garbage. He's a terrible human being. This is bond villain level shit and I don't honestly even know how he sleeps at night. I don't know how he justifies what he's doing here. If I knew that I was doing something and influencing the president of the United States to not do something that is objectively good for the human species, I don't know how I could live with myself. I'd be so distraught. I'd resign. I'd quit. I don't care how much money I was making. To do something this disgusting, morally reprehensible, I just couldn't live with myself. I couldn't lick myself in the mirror. So I don't know how Howard Dean looks himself in the mirror. I don't know how he's able to sleep at night, but regardless, if he can live with himself, I don't care. What he's doing is absolutely disgusting. It's grotesque and in the event, a new variant that's resistant to the vaccines emerges because not enough human beings in developing countries are vaccinated quick enough. It's people like Howard Dean who we should thank.