Tom Nicholas

Vaccines! | Friday Update

Added 2022-01-22 15:11:08 +0000 UTC

Welcome to this week’s edition of the Friday Update, in which I give a little insight into what I’ve been up to for the past seven days.

What have I been up to this week?

This week, work has continued on my upcoming video about how COVID-19 vaccine patents are stopping people in the Global South from having access to vaccines and how this is, through allowing the SARS-CoV-2 virus to mutate into new variants, prolonging the pandemic.

I’ve split my time this week between making progress on the script itself and doing some further reading. In particular, I’ve been writing a section on the difference between invention and innovation in scientific research and development. This basically boils down to the notion that an invention on its own is actually a bit of a non-event. It’s only when that invention is, through a process of innovation, made available to and adopted by society at large that the initial invention comes to really make a difference.

This may initially seem like a weird thing to be writing about in a video related to COVID-19 vaccine. However, it came up briefly in a journal article I was reading and, coincidentally had been mentioned to me a few months ago whilst I was delivering some guest lectures at a university in Oslo.

I’ve therefore decided to use this distinction between invention and innovation as a way of framing the topic at the heart of the video. Firstly, it helps to make clear that the video isn’t about questioning vaccines themselves (the invention in this scenario) but, instead, questioning their distribution and the associated profiteering.

Secondly, because most scholarship on invention and innovation tends to assume that turning an invention into something that is used in society involves turning it into a marketable and profitable product, it helps to cement the central question of the video: should we view COVID-19 vaccines primarily as a means for pharmaceutical companies to make money or as a public health tool?

Alongside this, I’ve been doing some further reading for a later section of the video which will focus on international patent law. For the most part, I’ll be focussing on the World Trade Organization which, as I’ll explain in the video, essentially writes the rules which govern how countries can trade with one another (and also writes many rules about how domestic economies must work too). Basically, given the global scale of the pandemic (and that many countries’ patent laws are essentially dictated by the WTO), it’s this institution that has been the forum for many of the most important clashes surrounding vaccine patents and whether a temporary waiver should be introduced to allow companies to produce vaccines to combat the disease regardless of whether Pfizer, Moderna etc. will give them permission.

While I’ve already got a really good understanding of most of the actual events and arguments that have been made surrounding a potential patent waiver, I’ve been keen to go back and fill in some of the gaps for myself surrounding the basics of the WTO itself so that I can give some context in the video.

I’m not necessarily sure how exciting the video sounds from my updates above, but I’m really excited about it. It’s a pretty ambitious undertaking but I think it’s a really important topic and will hopefully stand as a fairly in-depth overview for anyone who may have thought briefly about issues surrounding vaccine inequity but not had the time to spend two months reading up on it!

And I promise to make it fun! I’m currently searching for a lab to film the video in, so keep your fingers crossed for me that I manage to secure one!

And outside of work?

My partner does shift work and occasionally works weekends with days off in the middle of the week. This week, I therefore decided to move my days around and, although that means I’m now working on a Saturday, it meant I was able to spend a few days going on some adventures with her.

In fact, towards the end of last week, we booked a venue for our wedding next year, which is all very exciting! We’ve been engaged for a really long time but have both been at stages in our lives where finding the time to actually plan (and pay for!) a wedding was a little tricky. All of this actually worked out for the best as, if we had had the time, we’d have likely booked it for somewhere in the midst of the pandemic. Nevertheless, we’ve now got a venue booked and are in the process of putting together invites!

Yesterday, we also went for a little stroll to a local waterfall which I’d never visited before.

What have I been reading/watching/listening to?

My recommendation for this week has to be Dan Olson of Folding Ideas’ Line Goes Up: The Problem with NFTS. I’m sure I’ve recommended his videos a few times in these updates but, if you’ve enjoyed any of my tech-related videos (such as the Elon Musk video or the Metaverse video) then you’ll get loads out of this.

If you’ve yet to watch it, you can find it here: https://youtu.be/YQ_xWvX1n9g

It’s a lengthy one at about 2hrs 30mins and goes really in-depth into how blockchain, cryptocurrency and NFTs work but I think it’s time well spent. It only came out yesterday and I ended up staying up to watch it as I could tell it was going to be a good one!