Sharing Is Caring, but Do We Actually Believe So?
Today, vaccine shortages still run rampant in many poorer countries, particularly in many African countries. Hati Maronjei, a street vendor who lives in Zimbabwe, has been going to a clinic in the capital for four months straight and has yet to receive a dose of the COVID vaccine. “I am getting frustrated and afraid. I am always in crowded places, talking, selling to different people. I can’t lock myself in the house,” in an interview with AP news. We Americans have dealt with shortages of masks during the beginning of the pandemic, but the vaccine shortage is magnitudes more critical. Vaccines can be the difference between life and death for many, like Hati Maronjei, who has to interact with people daily as a street vendor. Yet while poorer countries are desperately clamoring for more vaccine doses, Americans are preparing to roll up their sleeves for another booster dose. However, the decision to go ahead with the booster has been met with significant criticism, as it ignores the broader global community. A common narrative regarding the vaccine is that “no one is safe until we’re all safe.” With the coronavirus continually mutating and possibly making vaccines obsolete, the pandemic cannot end until a greater majority of the human population has been vaccinated. While the vaccine is one example of such nationally-minded action in recent history, the US has been engaging in nationally-minded behavior for much of its existence. However, I think it’s time to change our mindset.
The recent narrative in the United States has been to pull inward: from moving semiconductor manufacturing back home to pulling out of treaties, there is an increasing number of national-minded citizens who support such actions. However, this type of thinking is misguided. When it comes to technology, some argue that the sharing and export of technology to other nations of the globe under a global mindset erodes the competitive advantage of the US. However, I argue that adopting a global mindset and sharing technology through subsidies and relaxing IP protection can lead to a net positive benefit in all areas of life because collaboration will lead to a greater increase in prosperity that would be impossible to attain alone.
A nationally-minded citizen thinks about protecting and guarding our nation’s interests before helping other countries. On the other hand, what I define as a global citizen is one who thinks practically about what collaboration can do to benefit both our nation and nations abroad in the long run.
Americans guard national security tech with particular jealousy. For example, many of our military technological advancements are not shared with our allies; rather, our allies are only granted the ability to purchase a subset of equipment we develop. Our allies can purchase fighter jets for millions apiece, but there is little else shared outside of operating manuals. Currently, this exchange seems to be less about helping our allies but instead about protecting the profitability of domestic aerospace and defense corporations
As a result, the whole development and distribution of military technology is a one-way street. The US gives the buyer the technology, but there’s no room for feedback or improvements. In the end, nobody benefits. The United States may end up with a worse-off relationship because the buyers of our equipment can’t have productive discussions and collaborate. To put it another way, while we ferociously guard our military know-how, we willingly sell our equipment at a massive charge to our allies.
On the contrary, sharing technology can be massively beneficial for our world. For example, many of us take GPS for granted. However, a little-known fact is that the system’s origins originated with the US military. Only when we shared such military technology with the world did both US citizens and other nations of our world benefit. Today, working with other nations such as India, the GPS system has been improved through continual revision and improvement through collaborating. In the end, the US benefited more after sharing GPS because other countries help improve a system that they also use. By contrast, much of our military technology, especially those that have civilian or commercial use, has been kept secret. Should the United States continue on its current course, we may harm ourselves by hoarding technology.
Here some may object that such collaboration requires a global mindset from everyone, and in our current state in the world, collaboration with other countries erodes our advantage and could seek to damage the US. If the US opens up to the world, it is logical to assume that shared technology could get into the wrong hands and would be a massive liability to the United States.
Those who object are right — this is a problem. Therefore, we should find a way to collaborate and export our technology to countries we trust at first and safeguard sensitive information to ensure it doesn’t fall into the wrong hands. One way to keep our information safe would be to conduct extensive background checks and only collaborate with countries we trust and have a long-standing relationship with first. While taking the first step to share long-held secrets can be daunting and counterproductive, in the long run, such actions will benefit the global community as a whole.
As a result of such actions, other countries would reciprocate the sharing of technology, which would benefit all countries involved. As more and more countries share and collaborate with the world, a positive feedback loop emerges. When more countries benefit from the fruits of collaboration, the more those countries would be willing to share and collaborate more. This type of collaboration is crucial for many problems commonly misattributed as issues that a national mindset can fix.
One example of a global issue I alluded to earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic. Amid the pandemic, both Moderna and Pfizer have come out with the most effective vaccines against the coronavirus. Many vaccines made by other entities such as AstraZeneca and Sinopharm pale in comparison to mRNA vaccines in efficacy and flexibility. Traditional vaccines need much longer timeframes to reformulate to address new COVID variants, while Moderna has already created a new vaccine booster for the delta variant. It would be massively beneficial to everyone if the production of mRNA. In addition, according to the New York Times, vaccine shortages will continue to be present until at least the end of 2021, with less than 40 percent of the world’s population vaccinated. The more time the virus is allowed to mutate, it bcomes more likely that a new variant that can evade vaccines better will show up, making ourselves susceptible to the virus once again. In addition, pandemic slows down global trade, which slows down and harms the US economy.
We should be directing our attention to helping the weakest links instead of rushing for more vaccine boosters for rich countries. However, according to Gavira and Kilic (2021), “…, patents, trade secrets and know-how owned by or assigned to larger companies may impede future research and development of mRNA technology by creating legal barriers that limit access to this technology”.
While the quick solution is to remove the IP protection around mRNA technology, some may object that sharing the vaccine is dangerous or harmful to the United States because the vaccine’s details are sensitive information. However, this isn’t entirely true. According to Gavira and Kilic, much of the underlying technology behind mRNA has already been published in research papers that is publicly available. Companies like Moderna have built on top of mRNA technology by obtaining patents to technologies that are required to create vaccines, such as a technique to suspend mRNA in lipids to prevent degradation. However, Moderna and Pfizer have kept their exact manufacturing process under trade secret. If we were to share the manufacturing process, the risk of abuse of the shared information is lower compared to more sensitive information. Here some may object fact that Pfizer or Moderna could be negatively impacted financially by the sharing of their trade secrets. However, we as citizens can petition the government to provide incentives for the sharing of the trade secrets, such as enforcing a licensing fee for manufacturers or providing a subsidy. The United States already has leverage over Moderna, as the National Institute of Health controls a key patent that Moderna uses to create their vaccine. Therefore, it is feasible to increase manufacturing rates of mRNA vaccines, thus slowing the spread of COVID and shortening the pandemic.
Where being a global citizen fits into this puzzle is that thinking outside of our own interests provides the impetus for us as a nation to collaborate with other countries. Because ultimately, us taxpayers have to shoulder the burden of reimbursing Moderna, only global citizens who believe that short-term pain is worth long-term fortune would advocate for such a cause. However, just like the world when it comes to vaccines, we are only as strong as our weakest link.
Recently, the idea of a booster shot has been passed around as an option for many Americans.Two doses of mRNA vaccine is already very effective at preventing severe infection and death from COVID. In a New York Times interview, Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease expert at the University of California, San Francisco, stated, “if you really use infection as an outcome, you probably need a booster every six months, which is unrealistic and unattainable.” Clearly, we could do more good by giving doses to countries that are struggling to obtain enough doses instead of using boosters to prevent mostly non-fatal infection. However, more of us need to adopt a global mindset and advocate for us as a nation to consider the global perspective instead of being laser-focused on ourselves.
In sum, while it is daunting and counterintuitive to look at the global perspective when issues arise at home, many of our short-term and long-term solutions require collaboration and cooperation on a global scale. After we take the first step towards being global citizens, we pave the way for a more globalized world where humanity is better off.
Sources: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/7/19/africas-vaccine-crisis-its-not-all-about-corruption
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-00912-9
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/03/world/global-coronavirus-vaccine-shortage.html
