Muhammad Zaheer Abbas
Submission to the Australian Parliament’s Joint Committee on Law Enforcement
Inquiry into Vaccine Related Fraud and Security Risks
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:
Australia needs to support the proposal of temporarily waiving intellectual property protections to scale up production and supply of vaccines and other COVID-19 related treatments and diagnostics. The Brand-name pharmaceutical industry’s claim that the proposed TRIPS waiver will result in the proliferation of counterfeit vaccines and treatments is not supported by empirical evidence. There is no empirical evidence to suggest that prior to the adoption of the TRIPS Agreement the western markets were flooded with counterfeit drugs and vaccines manufactured by generic manufacturers. If there is a tangible risk of counterfeit vaccines, governments have mechanisms in place to curb any malpractices. Governments can further strengthen their existing mechanisms to deal with any issues hypothetically raised by brand-name pharmaceutical industry.
