On an irregular basis, I will use my platform on Podcast for Inquiry to rail against something that really gets under my skin. In today's episode, I talk about covid vaccine patents. These are wonderful innovations, responsible for saving the lives of tens of millions of people (and preventing hundreds of millions or even billions of people from serious illness). All of them were paid for by public funds, in full or in significant part. So why did governments around the world grant patents - an exclusive right to manufacture these vaccines - to pharmaceutical companies?
Listen to my diatribe here:
A video recording is also available:
Let's tax away patent profits above a reasonable risk-adjusted rate of return and redistribute the proceeds such that the taxpayers who funded the research get their cut!
ReplyDelete