Frankly, this is a law that restrains the rights of taxpayers to demand some modicum of accountability and a reasonable return on investment. To borrow a trite phrase, it never should have seen the light of day. This law would deny taxpayers any return on research investment, but there is a subsection which remedies this foul law, namely Section 202.
Section 202 " could restore accountability to taxpayers...
According to authors, Alfred B. Engelberg & Aaron S. Kesselheim, "Section 202 requires research grantees that obtain patents claiming federally funded inventions to confer a nonexclusive, royalty-free license back to the US government, which permits the government to practice the invention or to have it practiced on the government's behalf." https://www.nature.com/articles/nm0616 In fact, former US Senator Birch Bayh defended this aspect of the law that bears his name, claiming that this section grants the government the right to..." use for itself and the public good inventions arising out of research that the federal government helps to support.
Using Section 202 could also benefit government funded healthcare such as Medicare and Medicaid. To date, this provision has not been used by the federal government. The reason may lie with the fact that pharmaceutical companies often obtain additional patents during development into FDA approved drugs, and never acknowledge taxpayer funding for the drug's origins. Unfortunately, Section 202 does not cover this type of privately funded patent. It is often unclear which monies paid for research when pharmaceutical companies are not forced to disclose the public money funding a drug's origins. Click Here
The ramifications of Section 202 are obvious regarding COVID vaccines and antivirals, so why is the Biden administration willing to enter negotiations aimed at privatizing these lifesaving drugs? Apparently, elderly, medically compromised and low-income Americans are considered acceptable 'collateral damage' in the COVID pharmaceutical wars. The fact that these drugs would likely not exist had it not been for extensive taxpayer funding, remains politically irrelevant.
The Bayh-Dole Act of 1980 needs serious revision in order to safeguard taxpayer investments in pharmaceutical development, but that's only part of the equation. The hypocrisy of both parties is on obscene display as the rich and famous have PPP loans forgiven, (though they can more than afford to pay the debt), while taxpayer funded research that resulted in COVID drugs are on the privatization chopping block.
Or perhaps a quote from French moralist Francois de La Rochefoucauld would be more descriptive of this political Gordian knot. He wrote in his book titled: Reflections or Sentences and Moral Maxims, that "hypocrisy is a tribute that vice pays to virtue." His tome, first published in 1665 remains relevant in the 21st century as politicians, corporate oligarchs, and wealthy celebrities wallow in a swamp of that very tribute, in the age of COVID.
Or as I prefer to say, "Et tu, Reese?"
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(NOTE: while celebs, pols, and corporate entities received PPP 'loans' which have been forgiven (though no justification has been offered for this fiscal gift; the Biden admn is planning on shifting costs of COVID meds to patients, even though these miracle meds were largely created on the public dime. )
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