Doctors without Borders refusing free Pfizer vaccines

[StNeotser, ASN, RN]

Doctors Without Borders Refuses Vaccines from Pfizer - The Atlantic

Quote

This week the medical-aid organization Doctors Without Borders refused a donation of one million vaccine doses from the pharmaceutical corporation Pfizer. It offered inoculations against a commonly fatal pneumonia deliverable immediately, to people in need anywhere and the doctors said no.

The decision is the result of a fundamental impasse in modern healthcare. The heart of the refusal which could well imperil children who would have received those vaccines is a principled stand against the extremely high cost of many vaccines.

I'm not sure where I stand on this one. I feel they should have accepted the vaccines, yet I understand why MSF are taking this position. What are your thoughts?

[elkpark]

My immediate thought is that I trust MSF a whole lot more than I trust Pfizer or any of the other Big Pharma companies. Good for them (MSF).

[BrendanO, MSN, RN]

Seems like MSF is trading the opportunity to get 1 million doses free for the ability to get unlimited doses at a highly discounted price. They'd also be securing the discount for other NGOs and governments. Seems legit to me. MSF has also already negotiated low ($3/dose) prices from GSK, the other vaccine manufacturer, so rejecting Pfizer isn't hurting their ability to secure the product.

I think it's also preventing Pfizer from taking a tax write-off, which is good. I don't imagine they can deduct price-discounted product sales the same way they can a donation, but I'm not an accountant.

[TriciaJ, RN]

This would be a good one for a nursing school ethics class. I don't think MSF makes these decisions lightly. Kudos to them for keeping the big picture in mind.

[StNeotser, ASN, RN]

I think it's also preventing Pfizer from taking a tax write-off, which is good. I don't imagine they can deduct price-discounted product sales the same way they can a donation, but I'm not an accountant.

Thanks. I didn't think of that one. I'll be interested in seeing the outcome of the stand MSF is taking.

[llg, PhD, RN]

If Pfizer really wants the tax write-off, maybe they can donate the vaccines to the Public Health Departments of the various countries they sell them to at high prices.

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Seems like MSF is trading the opportunity to get 1 million doses free for the ability to get unlimited doses at a highly discounted price. They'd also be securing the discount for other NGOs and governments. Seems legit to me. MSF has also already negotiated low ($3/dose) prices from GSK, the other vaccine manufacturer, so rejecting Pfizer isn't hurting their ability to secure the product.

I think it's also preventing Pfizer from taking a tax write-off, which is good. I don't imagine they can deduct price-discounted product sales the same way they can a donation, but I'm not an accountant.

Sign of the problem, pharmaceutical companies should NOT be allowed to make such high profits that they need a tax write off.

[la_chica_suerte85, BSN, RN]

This is probably in the top 10 of the Most Depressing Quotes of 2016: "In this case, to accept a donation is to accept the status quo in which health technology is beholden to the priorities and values of multinational monopolies and duopolies whose interests exceed simply finding a solvent path to technological progress and human wellbeing."

[Jolie, BSN]

I won't pretend to know the financial particulars of Pfizer's offer, nor do I know the morals, values or ethics that guide their leadership's decision making processes.

But I suggest that we all examine our attitudes towards businesses. We tend to disdain those that make a profit in the healthcare industry, often implying that such profitmaking is immoral when people's lives depend upon healthcare services. At the same time, WE all profit from the healthcare industry. I doubt that many (if any one) of us would go to work everyday unless we received a paycheck for doing so. Granted, we tend not to be "rich," because we use our earnings to pay living expenses and hopefully invest in our families' futures. In reality, that's not much different than what most businesses do. They use their income to pay their bills and invest in future research, medications and treatments, without which we would see no advances in healthcare.

If and when circumstances come to light that demonstrate illegal or unethical management of pharmaceutical, equipment manufacturers or other healthcare businesses, they should be held responsible and are deserving of our utter disdain. But please don't assume that profit automatically warrants scorn, unless the same is true for nurses as we deposit our paychecks every 2 weeks.

[elkpark]

I won't pretend to know the financial particulars of Pfizer's offer, nor do I know the morals, values or ethics that guide their leadership's decision making processes.

But I suggest that we all examine our attitudes towards businesses. We tend to disdain those that make a profit in the healthcare industry, often implying that such profitmaking is immoral when people's lives depend upon healthcare services. At the same time, WE all profit from the healthcare industry. I doubt that many (if any one) of us would go to work everyday unless we received a paycheck for doing so. Granted, we tend not to be "rich," because we use our earnings to pay living expenses and hopefully invest in our families' futures. In reality, that's not much different than what most businesses do. They use their income to pay their bills and invest in future research, medications and treatments, without which we would see no advances in healthcare.

If and when circumstances come to light that demonstrate illegal or unethical management of pharmaceutical, equipment manufacturers or other healthcare businesses, they should be held responsible and are deserving of our utter disdain. But please don't assume that profit automatically warrants scorn, unless the same is true for nurses as we deposit our paychecks every 2 weeks.

I doubt anyone here would propose that profit is inherently bad. However, it is disturbing to be aware that, while we frequently see clients struggling to afford necessary medications, Big Pharma is repeatedly listed as the most profitable industry in the US year after year.

Forbes Welcome

Forbes Welcome

Pharmaceutical industry gets high on fat profits - BBC News

I don't begrudge the pharmaceutical industry a profit. I do begrudge them an obscene profit. In my book, that does "automatically warrant scorn."

[BrendanO, MSN, RN]

At the same time, WE all profit from the healthcare industry.

That's not true. We trade labor for wages. That is completely different than "profit", which is surplus value extracted from labor. Corporate profit is, in fact, a dollar-for-dollar competitor with labor, future R&D, and production costs on a company's balance sheet.

It is entirely possible to deliver healthcare under a non-profit model, as Kaiser Permanente, many community hospitals, university medical centers, the NHS, VA, and many other publicly-financed health systems around the world demonstrate. That these organizations have historically been major developers of new therapies and interventions should put to rest the myth that innovation does not happen without a profit motive. How many new surgical techniques have been developed at Johns Hopkins, without any profit motive?

Whether that model can work in pharmaceutical development is an open question. A fair number of universities have opened drug-development research centers in the past decade or so, in some cases because they recognize that new treatments for certain health conditions will never be profitable without extraordinary costs to individual consumers, or that potential margins are too low to attract investors in the private sector. Time will tell what kind of drugs these groups can produce.

Given that healthcare is driven primarily by highly inelastic consumer demand for not getting sicker/not dying, I think it is a perfectly valid question whether profits belong in the picture at all.

[Graduatenurse14]

This is a tough one. I think that MSF should take the vaccines and think of other ways to protest.

There will now be 1 million people who won't get vaccinated but Pfizer will still be doing the same things. The only thing that their stand influences in the future is that more people may suffer from a "commonly fatal pneumonia."