 When it comes to the intellectual property rights currently stopping other countries from manufacturing their own generic COVID-19 vaccines, there's a lot of folks who are really showing their true colors. People in powerful positions, politicians, public health officials, who are effectively coming out in favor of vaccine apartheid. And that's not even mentioning the folks who are being conspicuously silent on this very important issue. So of course, I don't think it's too surprising to know that Republicans are expectedly siding with the pharmaceutical giants here, protecting their profits. But it's also a lot of Democrats who are currently trying to twist themselves into pretzels to justify their inhumane, pro-vaccine apartheid stances. For example, Democratic Senator from Delaware, Chris Coons, invoked the January 6th insurrection to defend pharmaceutical giants having exclusive rights to manufacture the world supply of the COVID-19 vaccines. And he said all of this with a straight face. Now thankfully, there are a number of folks who are choosing to speak up and do the right thing. More than 100 House Democrats have actually signed onto a letter urging Joe Biden to follow through on his campaign promise and actually waive the IP rights of these COVID vaccines. And as Daniel Moranz of HuffPost reports, Representative Jan Shikowsky plans to unveil a letter to President Joe Biden on Tuesday calling for the White House to temporarily lift trade-related intellectual property rights that prevent many developing countries from manufacturing COVID-19 vaccines or treatments. A total of 110 of the 218 House Democrats, including Shikowsky, have signed the letter ensuring it will have the support of a majority of House Democratic caucus. But none of the nine House Democrats among Congress' top 25 recipients of donations from pharmaceutical industry PACs in the 2020 election cycle have signed the letter. As HuffPost reported last Wednesday, Democratic representatives Scott Peters of California and Ron Kind of Wisconsin, number 7 and 19 respectively on the top 25 list, have actually solicited support for another letter to Biden asking him to not waive the intellectual property rules. HuffPost reached out to the remaining seven Democrats on the list to ask why they were not supporting the intellectual property waiver. The offices of House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Frank Pallone of New Jersey, number 4, House Ways and Means Committee Chair Richard Neal of Massachusetts, number 6, and representatives Anna Ashchew of California, number 9, Brad Schneider of Illinois, number 20, Kurt Schroeder of Oregon, number 22, and Raul Ruiz of California, number 25 did not respond to HuffPost's request for comment. And I wonder why. It's because these folks are cowards and they know what they're doing. They're protecting the profits of their donors. And they know that if they try to defend what's indefensible, if they come out and unveil that they're pro-vaccine apartheid, then they're going to look bad. It's a terrible look because quite frankly, to take a pro-death stance, that is a bad look. But their silence is deafening and their unwillingness to support the vaccine waiver, looking at that and the campaign contributions that they took, that tells you all that you need to know. But it's not just politicians who are taking this stance. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the most trusted figures when it comes to public health as it relates to COVID-19, has chosen to side with Republicans and the virus on this particular issue because Kiran Stacey of Financial Times reports, one of Joe Biden's top coronavirus advisors has warned that forcing drug companies to abandon intellectual property rights to COVID-19 vaccines risks backfiring if it leads to long legal disputes. Fauci told the Financial Times on Monday that he was agnostic about how to boost vaccine supply to developing countries, but he added, going back and forth consuming time and lawyers and a legal argument about waivers, that it's not the end game. People are dying around the world and we have to get vaccines into their arms in the fastest and most efficient way possible. The proposal to allow countries to temporarily override patent rights for COVID-19 related medical products was put forward at the WTO by India and South Africa in October. The plan was designed to help developing countries make copies of the vaccines without fear of being sued. It has been backed by almost 60 countries, more than 100 members of the U.S. Congress and several former world leaders. If only Dr. Anthony Fauci was in the position of power where he could influence the president of the United States to waive the IP rights so that way there won't be lawsuits. That's the whole point of the waiver, Dr. Anthony Fauci, to make sure there aren't these legal battles. But he changed up his argument a little bit when he was actually pressed further about this on MSNBC and as you're going to see, his defense of vaccine apartheid is embarrassingly pathetic. There is increasing pressure on the president, as you know, to ignore big farmer and temporarily waive patent protections on the COVID vaccine. 60 countries led by India and South Africa, 100 members of the U.S. Congress, 100 Nobel laureates, multiple former world leaders, your friend, Dr. Tedros, the head of the World Health Organization. They all say it's the right thing to do to help developing countries in particular. You seem to disagree according to an interview you did with the FT yesterday. Why are they all wrong, Dr. Fauci? No, no, they're not all wrong and I don't necessarily disagree. I'm really quite agnostic on that. My approach is that the end game is where I want to go. I want to see people now in the developing countries getting vaccinated. However you do that as quickly as possible is fine with me. One of the complicating issues of the so-called waiving the patents is that by the time you then get set up to get the technology transferred to other countries to be able to do it, you may be going into the end of 2022, the beginning of 2023, at which point a lot of people will have died. So I'm not against transferring technology and I'm agnostic about the trips waiver. The one thing I am bullish on and I really do feel we need to do. How can you be agnostic though? How can you be agnostic? You're the chief medical advisor. If the president says, Dr. Fauci, what should I do? What's your advice? What are you going to tell him? I'm telling get people vaccinated as quickly as you possibly can. If that means getting billions of doses from companies and getting it to the people in the lower middle income countries at a very, very low price that they can afford, do it and do it now. Because if you want to start transferring technology, you're going to get it to them a year and a half from now. So I can be agnostic about it. He's making this implicit assumption that we are advocating for the IP waiver in lieu of the United States distributing these vaccines around the globe. When nobody said that, nobody's advocating for that. You made that up. You're the one who's saying that. These are not mutually exclusive things, but his response here, you know it's not surprising considering this is the guy who came out against price controls for the COVID vaccines as journalist Lee Fung points out. So shame on Dr. Anthony Fauci. If I were him, I would resign in shame because the minute a public health official starts being more concerned about profits over public health, you're no longer welcome. You're no longer trusted by resign. Now I want to refer to a comment made by Earl Blumenauer, a Democratic representative who isn't perfect, but he actually does support the waiver and he made a phenomenal point about this. He says, if the pharmaceutical industry had spent as much time trying to boost production as they spent trying to fight this waiver, we may not have even needed the waiver. And that is such a fantastic point and they're so transparent. It's obvious that the reason why they want to be the exclusive manufacturers of the world's supply of vaccines is because it is very profitable. Pfizer is posting very high profits and about a third of their profits is all because of the COVID vaccine. If there is a generic alternative available around the globe, do you think that's going to benefit Pfizer's bottom line? Of course not. They benefit if there's only a couple of manufacturers of the vaccines that are trying to cut out the competition so they could boost profits. It's incredibly disgusting. And honestly, anyone who's defending this or anyone in a position of power who's remaining silent, they're part of the problem. They effectively support vaccine apartheid unless they explicitly speak out against it explicitly support this IP waiver. Now, Joe Biden, we shouldn't have to be exerting this much pressure on Joe Biden because on the campaign trail, Adi Barkan asked him if it's the case that the United States is the first country to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. Will we share the recipe with the world? And Joe Biden was very clear. So Adi Barkan in a video released with a more perfect union, he basically tries to make an appeal to Joe Biden's humanity. And, you know, this is a powerful video, but I don't necessarily know that it's going to work because I think that Joe Biden has lost all sense of humanity and decency being in power because that's what it does to people. But nonetheless, take a look at this great video from Adi Barkan. Dear President Biden, I want to remind you of a promise you made to me and to the American people. If the US discovers a vaccine first, will you commit to sharing that technology with other countries and will ensure there are no patents to stand in the way of other countries and companies mass producing those life-saving vaccines? Absolutely. Positively. This is the only humane thing in the world to do. Mr. President, you and I are both safe from this deadly pandemic because we could get the vaccine and we will stay safe if you reverse Trump's inhumane policies and we vaccinate the entire world. That is the only way that we can prevent the development of vaccine resistant coronavirus variants. But billions of families around the world aren't as lucky as you and me. India is being engulfed by this virus and its people are utterly helpless. Mass cremations and funeral pyres now lighting. India has set a global record for daily infections and deaths. Being abandoned in the teeth of a deadly disease, only around two percent of Indians are fully inoculated. If any American leader of our lifetime has understood the value of a single life and the deep pain of loss, it is you. But you also know the beauty of salvation. You know the joys that life can bring. When I asked you last year if you would change the global rules for vaccines, you did not hesitate, equivocate or mince your words. The answer is yes, yes, yes, yes. And it's not only a good thing to do, it's overwhelmingly in our interest to do it as well. May 5 will be your moment, America's moment to steer us down a more just and humane path. Governments from around the globe will gather at the World Trade Organization. They will ask America to waive the rules that are blocking them from making enough vaccines to protect their people. In this pandemic, millions of families around the world are grieving because of one stray cough, one brief mistake, one unfortunate moment. American innovation has delivered health and safety to the people of this country. But billions of people have been excluded. Their dreams are no less real than ours. Their love is no less strong. Their lives are no less worthy. But because they live somewhere else, because they have less money, because the international laws are unfair and because the pharmaceutical companies are so greedy, millions more people may die of this disease. You know that this is wrong. You know it in the marrow of your bones. In a few days at the WTO meeting, all eyes will be on America. We will decide the answer to the world's play. What kind of leadership will we display? The answer, Mr. President, is up to you. Yeah, Joe Biden was pretty clear there. So the fact that we have to create letters and exert pressure in and of itself that shows you that Joe Biden, he doesn't have the correct instincts. He's looking out for his donors in the pharmaceutical industry, and he's not actually concerned with public health. Sure, when it comes to the United States, he's great at meeting his own goals that he sets to vaccinate Americans. In fact, he just released a new goal to have 70 percent of Americans have at least one shot by July. But the issue is you can vaccinate 100 percent of the American population. Not that that's possible, but you can do that. However, if the rest of the globe is in vaccinated and if covid is still spreading, a mutation could emerge that is resistant to the vaccines. So at the end of the day, all of this will be for nothing if we don't make sure that the global south has vaccines as well. And the only feasible way to actually make sure this happens is to allow them to develop their own covid vaccines. And meanwhile, we distribute as many vaccines as we possibly can to them. This isn't tough. Either you support global public health and saving lives, or you care more about the profits of pharmaceutical giants. Pick a side. But don't try to obfuscate. Don't try to make it seem as if, oh, well, you know, this would actually increase the supply of vaccines. Or, you know, maybe if we keep the exclusive rights here in America to manufacture the vaccines, we'll just be more united. Stop. You sound foolish because what you're defending is vaccine apartheid and no amount of obfuscation or mental gymnastics that you do is going to make your argument more persuasive. There's a right and a wrong policy here. The issue is black and white, unlike a lot of political issues. Support the IP waiver if you care about human lives. Period. End of story.