The Biden administration, which is lecturing the world on human rights, cooperation from the day it assumed power, has bucked the question on the demand by the Serum Institute of India of raw materials for the development of vaccines.
White house sidesteps & refuses to comment on a question on US ban on #covid vaccine raw material for export to India. pic.twitter.com/og5QvIuOmd
— Sidhant Sibal (@sidhant) April 20, 2021
“The Serum Institute of India has been saying that the Biden administration is blocking exports of raw materials that it needs to make COVID vaccines, and the Serum Institute has also urged President Biden to lift that embargo. So I wanted to ask which raw materials are at issue here? And do you have any plans to address Serum’s concerns?” asked a reporter during the morning news conference by the White House COVID-19 Response Team.
Both Dr Anthony Fauci, Director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and Dr Andy Slavitt, the White House COVID-19 response senior advisor said they had no answer. “I don’t… I’m sorry. We could get back to you on that, I’m sure. But I don’t have anything for you right now,” Fauci said.
“Let us get back to you. Suffice to say we are taking very seriously the global threat from the pandemic. We’ve been a leader in the funding of COVAX, have done several bilateral transfers of vaccines, and are looking very hard and taking very seriously all of these complex issues, we’ll get back to you on the specifics,” Slavitt said.
The United States has enough raw material to produce the vaccine and the country has already produced enough vaccines for its population, but it stopped the supply to companies like Serum Institute of India because the American big pharmaceutical companies want India as well as other developing countries – to whom India is supplying vaccines at remarkably cheap rates as compared to American firms – to purchase from it so that they can mint billions of dollars out of the pandemic.
Previously, Adar Poonawalla, the CEO of Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines, requested President Joe Biden to stop the embargo on the export of raw material.
“Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S., I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details,” tweeted the CEO of Serum Institute of India with a folded hands emoji.
Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S., I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw material exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details. 🙏🙏
— Adar Poonawalla (@adarpoonawalla) April 16, 2021
Almost a month ago, American President Joe Biden agreed to provide support for manufacturing 1 billion Covid vaccines in collaboration with other QUAD nations. These vaccines, which were to be manufactured in India with support in raw material and financing from other QUAD countries (the United States, Japan, and Australia), were to be distributed to poor nations around the world, especially in Indo-Pacific.
However, one month after the meeting, the Biden administration has stopped the supply of critical raw material needed to manufacture vaccines in India, the factory of the global vaccine production, especially for the poor countries.
The Biden administration’s embargo on the export of raw material to India would lead to the death of millions of the people in the poor nations, but the Biden administration, which started lecturing the world on human rights, global cooperation and so on from the first day it got elected, has backstabbed the poor nations and killed their hopes.
India, despite being a middle-income country, exported more than 36 crore doses of Covid vaccine and donated crores of vaccines to poor nations. On the other hand, the Biden administration has not only put an embargo on the export of raw material but allowed the big pharmaceutical companies of the United States to exploit the poor nations.
