w  rd 2 the woss

Recently pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has offered 1 million free vaccines against pneumonia to Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières or MSF) to help children in developing countries obtain an immunity to a number of fatal diseases including pneumonia that are very prevalent in those countries.

 

However, the humanitarian organization has refused these free vaccines for a number of reasons, stating they would rather pay through generous donors than accept this offering.

 

Executive director of Doctors Without Borders; Jason Cone explains that the organization is trying to raise awareness for the insane prices of these vaccines for many countries around the world. He added that donations like this one would “undermine long-term efforts to increase access to affordable vaccines and medicines.”

 

“Rejecting the no cost vaccines was hard,” continues Cone. “But ultimately it was the right thing to do, free is not always better”

 

He pointed out that donation offers from large pharmaceutical companies comes with ways to restrict where the vaccines end up, who administers them, and who receives these vaccines. As a result, the donations end up being more trouble than they’re worth. The restrictions slow down vaccination campaigns during public health emergencies which can be disastrous.

 

Doctors Without Borders cannot risk a halt in their efforts, pneumonia kills about 1 million kids every year.

 

Donations also serve as a way to shield giants such as Pfizer away from contempt when they hike the price of the drug, using the donations as an excuse. This makes the situation worse.

 

In a recent blog post Jason Cone wrote: “We need competition from new companies to bring down prices overall — something we don’t have currently for the pneumonia vaccine,” adding that donations, “are often used as a way to make others ‘pay up.’”

 

There are less competitions in the market because other potential competitors are less likely to enter into the marketplace as a result of the extremely dominant giants. The pharmacy companies know people are dependent on them for these vaccines so they don't feel a need to reduce prices.

 

A more competitive market would mean more competitive prices which would help make the price of these vaccines more affordable.

 

Cone showed his support for another Pharma giant, GlaxoSmithKline, for reducing its pneumonia vaccine price to the lowest in the world for humanitarian organizations and urged Pfizer and others to take a similar path.

 

A company spokesman responded to these claims from Jason saying: “Pfizer strongly disagrees with MSF’s stated policy and believes product donations play a crucial role in addressing humanitarian crises around the world. We reiterate our offer of 1 million free doses and continued supply to meet these urgent, emergency needs.”

 

However, this leads us pondering: Money vs. product, which one is more acceptable in an urgent situation?