How we can boost access to COVID vaccines and treatments

We have safe and effective vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics—but to end the pandemic, we need to ensure everyone has access to them. This week, BIO President and CEO Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath explained how we can boost access, both at home and abroad.

“The global pandemic can only be ended with global efforts that reach everywhere this deadly virus is prevalent,”said BIO’s Dr. Michelle McMurry-Heath in a letter yesterday to President Biden. 

The letter highlights the importance of the COVAX and ACT Accelerator initiatives, which will deliver vaccines to poor and underdeveloped countries. (One of the Biden administration’s first actions was announcing the United States will participate in them.)

The letter also highlights concerns with the World Health Organization’s proposed TRIPS waiver,which would temporarily waive intellectual property rights for COVID-19 vaccines and drugs and “distract from the need for coordinated international efforts and the cooperative work that currently is being advanced, and thus ultimately undermine the very goals of quick, safe access that it seeks to promote.” 

What about underrepresented communities right here in the United States? “Until officials address [vaccine] hesitancy systematically, it will obstruct vaccination efforts—long after vaccine supply and delivery concerns are resolved,” she writes in an op-ed for the New Jersey Star-Ledger, co-authored by Dr. Shereef Elnahal, President and CEO of University Hospital in Newark. 

“But here’s who can sway them: pastors, family doctors, and other trusted local influencers—even hairstylists,” they continue. “With help from community pillars, we can convince a critical mass to get vaccinated.” 

Read the whole thing to learn how.

More Health Care News:

Reuters: Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine neutralizes Brazil variant in lab study
“The scientists said the neutralizing ability was roughly equivalent to the vaccine’s effect on a previous less contagious version of the virus from last year.”

STAT News: A pandemic expert weighs in on the long road ahead for COVID-19 vaccine distribution
CEPI will “launch the strategy for its next set of goals and take part in an important discussion at the London think tank Chatham House aimed at finding ways to unblock the vaccine production bottlenecks without harming non-COVID vaccine production.”

There’s been a lot of talk in D.C. lately about how we can tackle climate change, food security, and pandemic preparedness. Ahead of a few important hearings and expected legislation, we took a deep dive into how biotech can help us meet these agriculture and climate policy goals.

We’ve got challenges. A zoonotic disease has killed 500,000 Americans, climate change is causing increasingly volatile and devastating weather events—and if we don’t act, this is just the tip of the quickly melting iceberg. 

But we have the tools to counter the effects of climate change, prevent the next pandemic, and build resiliency. Thanks to biotechnology, we have solutions for reducing GHG emissions, eliminating plastic waste, making food more sustainable and nutritious, and creating jobs. 

This is biotechnology’s moment—but to seize it, we need effective collaboration with policymakers, and specifically, policies that accelerate biotechnology. 

What kind of policies?Read the whole thing for recommendations related to climate policy, agricultural innovation, and animal biotechnology. 

So, what's on the agenda this week? On Thursday, the House Agriculture Committee will look at food insecurity in America, while the Senate Agriculture Committee will look at how farmers and foresters can tackle climate change. Stay tuned.

More Agriculture and Environment News:

The New York Times: A biography of the woman who will re-engineer humans
“In The Code Breaker Walter Isaacson reprises several of his previous themes—science, genius, experiment, code, thinking different—and meets his first female subject, Jennifer Doudna, a genuine heroine for our time.”

President Biden’s Tuesday: Visiting a small business in D.C. that benefited from the Paycheck Protection Program. 

What’s Happening on Capitol Hill: The House will take up the Senate-amended COVID-19 relief package, with a vote possible today or tomorrow. At 10 AM ET, Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions will hold a full committee hearing, Examining Our COVID-19 Response: An Update from the Frontlines.