[D66] The COVID-19 vaccine and the drive for profit

[R.O.]

" In the most flagrant and possibly hazardous diversion from the safety 
protocols, some members of the US Congress have proposed so-called 
“human challenge trials.” This is the deliberate exposure of humans with 
live COVID-19 virus to fast-track the development of a vaccine (see 
“Human challenge trials are being pushed to develop a vaccine against 
the coronavirus”). "

wsws.org:

The COVID-19 vaccine and the drive for profit
By Frank Gaglioti
8 July 2020

Last month, Four Corners screened the episode Injection of Hope: The 
hunt for a COVID-19 vaccine on Australian television. Four Corners is 
the premier current affairs program for the Australia Broadcasting 
Corporation (ABC) and distinguished as their longest-running documentary 
television program, having first aired on August 19, 1961.

While over 100 laboratories spread across multiple nations are working 
to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, the program limits its focus to research 
conducted by Australia. Still, the program investigates the efforts by 
developers to ensure that if a vaccine is produced, it can be 
distributed equitably on an international scale. This is a significant 
concern, as a majority of the research funding comes from pharmaceutical 
giants that have an extremely pernicious record in this regard. This is 
presented as inevitable as no other institutions other than these 
conglomerates have the necessary capital to fund research into vaccines 
successfully. It has been estimated that it will take US$2 billion to 
develop a viable vaccine against the coronavirus.

“It’s very easy to criticize big pharma, but, to be quite blunt, until 
someone comes up with an alternative, we have to go with what we’ve 
got,” said University of Queensland Professor (UQ) Ian Frazer, an 
immunologist.

This is a false paradigm as it completely accepts that governments have 
almost completely abandoned the responsibility to fund such necessary 
research, leaving the field to the giant pharmaceutical companies which 
will seek to exploit any research results ruthlessly.

Frazer and his team have developed a “molecular clamp,” a genetically 
engineered protein like the spike-protein on the COVID-19 virus. 
COVID-19 is a type of coronavirus, named after the myriad of club-like 
features all over its surface, giving it the appearance of the sun’s 
corona in electron micrographs. The virus uses spike-proteins to bind to 
and gain access to host cells. “Our clamp is sort of like a bulldog clip 
that holds that together and ensures that the right protein in the right 
structure is presented to the immune system as a vaccine,” UQ Professor 
Paul Young, a member of the Covid-19 Vaccine Project, told the ABC.

Briefly, the spike-proteins, classified as “viral fusion proteins,” are 
excellent candidates for an attack on enveloped viruses as they are the 
main targets of the protective neutralizing antibodies. For such 
vaccines, the “pre-fusion” form of the spike-protein is optimal. 
However, traditional approaches to the recombinant expression of these 
spike-proteins leads to a premature triggering, which causes the 
spike-protein to change to its more stable post-fusion form 
structurally. The molecular clamp allows these recombinant fusion 
proteins to remain in the pre-fusion form, which is more effective.

Frazer and Young’s work is being funded by the Coalition for Epidemic 
Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a foundation based in Oslo, Norway, 
organized through donations given by the public, private and 
philanthropic groups such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. CEPI 
operates under the motto of “new vaccines for a safer world.” Their 
stated goals are to finance independent vaccine research projects 
against emerging infectious diseases. Initially conceived in 2015, CEPI 
was formally introduced at the World Economic Forum in Davos, 
Switzerland, in 2017. The Gates Foundation provided US$460 million in 
capital to launch the venture.

Given the prohibitive costs for vaccine development and cutbacks for 
such projects by major universities and hospital research programs, 
several countries, that include Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Japan, have 
also funded CEPI’s research initiatives.

In Australia, notably, eight positions in biosecurity research were cut 
in 2014 after the government cut AUD$111 million from the budget of the 
Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). 
Such cuts have a devastating impact on the uninterrupted research 
programs that are critical as emerging opportunistic pandemic infections 
have become a focus of global concerns. This funding was restored 
earlier this year when the Australian government provided an extra 
AUD$220 million to an upgrade of the biosecurity facility. Incredibly, 
this work will not commence for another two years.

“Funding cuts and the reorganization of funding has been very 
challenging for us … Basically, scientists in this area, a vaccine 
manufacturer and virology, in particular, were very dispirited, very 
disheartened,” Doherty Institute Professor Damien Purcell told the ABC.

According to Jane Halton, who was previously a senior public servant in 
Australia and now the chair of the CEPI, the group was set up in 
response to fears of an Ebola outbreak devastating central Africa that 
could have pandemic potential. It was recognized that a vaccine was 
urgently needed to protect the population. However, as the virus 
outbreak became contained and remained restricted to the impoverished 
communities in the Congo, the funding spigots were quickly closed off. 
Investors saw no profits forthcoming from such a vaccine development.

Fast-forwarding to the present COVID-19 pandemic, “A group of global 
health experts, together with some people from the business community, 
got together to say, well, how can we prevent that kind of thing 
happening again?”, Halton told the ABC.

The Bill Gates Foundation has expended US$250 million to fight 
coronavirus. This includes US$150 million for grant funding in Africa 
and South Asia.

In outlining a US$50 million outlay, Gates stated: “To beat the Covid-19 
pandemic the world needs more than breakthrough science. It needs 
breakthrough generosity. And that’s what we’re seeing today as leaders 
across the public and private sectors are stepping up to support 
Gavi—especially Prime Minister (Boris) Johnson.” Gavi is the Vaccine 
Alliance, a non-profit immunization organization.

Any discussion of Johnson’s “generosity” is extremely misplaced, as he 
is centrally responsible for the pandemic raging across the UK due to 
his unabashed herd immunity policy. His government’s investment in 
underdeveloped countries is only to advance the interests of British 
imperialism.

Moreover, the massive amounts of money donated by super-rich figures 
such as Gates are utterly demeaning to the working class and the 
oppressed masses around the world. Access to a vaccine for the COVID-19 
virus, if, and when, it is produced, should be a social right and not 
left to the largesse of wealthy individuals.

In society today, there is a return to the aristocratic principle that 
reigned before the bourgeois revolutions where social rights such as 
education, adequate health care, and the right to culture were left to 
the whim of the aristocracy (see Facebook founder’s gift to Newark 
schools: The return of the aristocratic principle).

The effect of philanthropy is to undermine government-funded research 
initiatives in university and hospital laboratories, i.e., public 
enterprises in the interest of the population for the common good and 
benefit, a primary tenet of democratic principles. Researchers’ 
dependence on the super-rich and the pharmaceutical giants, with the 
accompanying pressures to “warp-speed” a product for consumption, has 
also led to a situation where crucial safety mechanisms embedded into 
scientific research are being bypassed for purposes of expediency. These 
shortcuts with protocols can only lead to concerns over the efficacy and 
safety of vaccines.

After the development of their candidate COVID-19 vaccine, Oxford 
University’s research team undertook initial safety testing in animals 
at a CSIRO facility in Australia. Yet, as soon as the ferrets were 
inoculated with the experimental treatment, researchers in Britain had 
already initiated the human phase one trial without waiting for results 
to guide the next phase.

The Director of Health and Biosecurity of CSIRO, Dr. Rob Grenfell, told 
ABC, “When Oxford announced that they were starting their phase one 
trials and we’re thinking, ‘we’ve only just immunized our ferrets.’ I’m 
going, ‘Wow!’”

On May 26, a laboratory in Melbourne, Australia, began phase one trials 
on behalf of US researchers Novavax, with the plan to inject 131 
volunteers, testing the safety of their vaccine NVX-CoV2373 and 
evaluating for possible signs of efficacy. Preliminary immunogenicity 
and safety results are expected in July, at which point the second phase 
of the vaccine trial can begin in the US and multiple other countries. 
The US Department of Defense (DoD) is providing $60 million to the 
biotech company to deliver 10 million doses of its vaccine to the DoD 
this year even before preliminary phase 1 data was available.

In the most flagrant and possibly hazardous diversion from the safety 
protocols, some members of the US Congress have proposed so-called 
“human challenge trials.” This is the deliberate exposure of humans with 
live COVID-19 virus to fast-track the development of a vaccine (see 
“Human challenge trials are being pushed to develop a vaccine against 
the coronavirus”).

“That is really going down a path where not many people have gone 
before. I think that purposely challenging people is going to be quite a 
difficult thing to accept ethically,” said Professor Purcell.

As the pandemic rages across the planet with now 11 million cases and 
more than 500,000 deaths, the struggle to develop a vaccine has become 
an urgent task. But the urgency for the capitalist class is based on 
profits and economic nationalism. The vaccines will be weaponized for 
geopolitical purposes, not for the promises to provide such treatments 
equitably on a global scale.

The program concludes warning of the pitfalls of what Halton calls 
“vaccine nationalism, where countries basically are not prepared to 
contribute to the global effort. The best thing we can do at the moment 
is advocate for that, to advocate that actually if there’s any of this 
disease anywhere in the world, it’s in nobody’s interest.” However 
sincere these sentiments may be, they are a utopic outlook under capitalism.

The program of the capitalist class is the immediate return to work, and 
herd immunity, whether or not a vaccine is developed. The repeated 
optimism and euphoria for vaccine development in the media serve as 
publicity stunts to cloud the minds and hearts while providing investors 
opportunities to cash in early regardless of the benefits these vaccines 
will or will not provide.

The working class must understand that the race to find a vaccine is 
being driven by the enormous profits that would be made by any 
successful candidate and not the well-being of humanity or the 
eradication of the coronavirus. Hopes that such a treatment would be 
made available to them is a dubious proposition. Such critical work and 
lifesaving treatment should be removed from profit incentives.

Pharmaceutical companies must be brought under social ownership. 
Research must proceed to allow the full cooperation of scientists 
internationally. This will require the intervention of the working 
class, placing control of the research facilities under democratic 
processes where research is conducted for the need of humanity and not 
the corporate interests of the pharmaceutical giants.