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Oncologist Dr Zeke Emanuel, one of 10 advisory board members appointed to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden’s coronavirus task force, has urged the United States and other countries not to stockpile a vaccine against the coronavirus.
Emanuel, who was the key architect of the Affordable Care Act under the Obama administration, co-authored an article in September in which he urged officials to follow the “fair priority model,” which calls for a “Equitable international distribution of vaccines,” rather than what he and his co-authors called “vaccine nationalism”.
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The model allows the country that produces the vaccine to maintain sufficient supplies to keep the transmission rate below 1%, but says that beyond that, the vaccine should be distributed internationally. This means giving or selling doses of the vaccine before it is available to all citizens of this country, Emanuel told Scientific American.
“Reasonable national bias does not allow keeping more vaccine than the amount needed to keep the transmission rate (Rt) below 1, while this vaccine could instead mitigate the substantial harm associated with COVID-19 in other countries that have not been able to keep Rt below 1 thanks to continued public health efforts, ”argues the Science magazine article“ An ethical framework for global vaccine allocation ”.
“Associative ties only justify a government giving some priority to its own citizens, not a top priority,” Emanuel wrote with his co-authors.
The Trump administration had said the United States would share any coronavirus vaccine it developed with other countries once American needs were met and the United States did not coordinate distribution with the World Organization. of health (WHO).
“Our first priority is of course to develop and produce a sufficient quantity of safe and effective vaccines and therapeutics approved by the FDA for use in the United States,” said Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar, during an August visit to Taiwan.
“But we expect to have a capacity that, once these needs are met, these products would be available to the global community on fair and equitable distributions on which we would consult with the international community,” Azar said.
Congress has approved nearly $ 10 billion for the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, which works with private companies to produce and distribute a vaccine in the United States.
On Monday, Pfizer and BioNTech’s coronavirus vaccine took another step toward approval, with the company announcing 90% efficacy in its Phase 3 clinical trial.
Emanuel and his co-authors opposed a WHO proposal to distribute vaccines globally at a rate proportional to the population of each country, and rejected the belief that a high number of deaths could be avoided by providing vaccines to countries based on “the number of primary healthcare caregivers, the proportion of the population over 65 and the number of people with co-morbidities.”
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The WHO proposal ignores the fact that death is not the only form of harm, argued Emanuel, and that prioritizing high-risk older people would mean sending a disproportionate amount. vaccines in wealthier countries, where average life expectancy tends to be longer.
Instead, Emanuel and his co-authors advocated focusing on preventing premature deaths, the consequences of school and business closures, and reducing overall transmission of the virus.
Emanuel came into focus this weekend after a 2014 essay he wrote, in which he explains why he doesn’t want to live past 75, resurfaced.
Emanuel, 63, wrote that “at 75, creativity, originality and productivity have all but disappeared for the vast majority of us” in his essay titled “Why I Hope to Die at 75”.
“Since 1960, however, increases in longevity have been achieved primarily by extending the lives of people over 60. Rather than saving more young people, we are lengthening old age, ”Emanuel wrote.
Biden is 77 years old.
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Other members of the coronavirus task force advisory board selected by Biden include Rick Bright, who said he stepped down from his NIH post under President Trump due to the administration’s adoption of hydroxychloroquine, and Dr Atul Gawande, former CEO of Haven, a healthcare company founded by Amazon. , Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase in 2018.
Emanuel has not responded to Fox News’ request for comment at this time.
Evie Fordham of Fox News contributed to this report.
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