Owen Barder
Owen Barder, a development expert at the Center for Global Development, asks “Should we pay less for vaccines?”
Barder’s post was prompted by the critical response some advocacy groups, like Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières (aka Doctors Without Borders) made after the successful fund-raising effort on June 13 by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, a massive project getting vaccines out to poor kids.
As I noted at the time, these organizations and others were glad to see GAVI receive $4.3 billion in new funding but they felt the alliance was a bit too friendly to the drug industry and too willing to accept industry pricing.
This issue, of what constitutes fair vaccine pricing for poor countries, came up repeatedly this week at Seattle’s Pacific Health Summit. I intend to write about that in a separate post later.
For now, I urge you to read Barder’s excellent take on the critics of GAVI and the vaccine manufacturers. Continue reading