Elections DA Supplement - Michigan 2024 DGW

Elections Supplement
Trump Bad Links
Waivers
Majority of U.S voters support the TRIPS COVID-19 waiver
Stone 23 [Christopher Stone, Space Review, February 25, 2023, “US cooperation with China in space: Some thoughts to consider for space advocates and policy makers,” http://www.thespacereview.com/article/2246] //nealgupta
Senator Bernie Sanders & Representative Ilhan Omar respond to a shock poll showing that a large majority of US voters want Biden to temporarily waive patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines.
A new poll finds that 60% of US voters want President Joe Biden to endorse the motion by more than 100 lower- and middle-income countries to temporarily waive patent protections on Covid-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organization. Only 28% disagreed.
The survey, carried out by Data for Progress and the Progressive International, shows a super majority of 72% registered Democrats want Biden to temporarily waive patent barriers to speed vaccine roll out and reduce costs for developing nations. Even registered Republicans support the action by margin of 50% in favor to 36% opposed.
The new polling shows that “there is a popular mandate from the US American people to put human life and economic recovery ahead of corporate profits and a broken intellectual property system,” said David Adler, the general coordinator of the Progressive International. Burcu Kilic, research director of the access to medicines program at Public Citizen and member of Progressive International’s Council, called on Biden to “listen to Americans who put him in power” and “do the right thing.”
Due to WTO intellectual property rules, countries are barred from producing the current leading approved vaccines, including US-produced Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. In October of 2020, South Africa and India presented the WTO with a proposal to temporarily waivers these rules for the duration of the pandemic so that vaccines can be manufactured across different countries, increasing their availability, reducing their cost and ensuring that they are delivered to everyone on earth as quickly as possible.
In the absence of the waiver, the current manufacturing and distribution rates are unlikely to stem the pandemic’s momentum, especially as new variants, which are more infectious and seem to evade the acquired immunity from prior infection or from the current vaccines, continue to emerge. The US under President Trump joined other richer nations to block them.
The shock poll reveals a level of public support for intellectual property waivers that will likely add to growing congressional pressure on Biden to join those pushing to save lives through a global vaccination drive. Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky is working on a letter to the president to which Schakowsky says more than 60 lawmakers have added their signature, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Senator Bernie Sanders, Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, responded to the poll saying the US should be “leading the global effort to end the coronavirus pandemic.” According to Sanders, “a temporary WTO waiver, which would enable the transfer of vaccine technologies to poorer countries, is a good way to do that.
Responding to the new poll, Representative Ilhan Omar called on Biden to “support a waiver to boost the production of vaccines, treatment and tests worldwide,” arguing that it was “not just an issue of basic morality, but of public health.”
Adler argues, “US Americans know rigged rules to prop up big pharma’s profits are not in their interest. The longer the virus has to spread, the more it can mutate and become vaccine-resistant. Covid-19 anywhere is a threat to public health and economic wellbeing everywhere. If intellectual property restrictions are not lifted, the pandemic will go on for longer, killing more people and damaging more livelihoods.”
The threat to the Global South from vaccine apartheid is a “death sentence for millions around the world—and it is because giant pharmaceutical corporations would rather maximize profit than provide vaccines to people who need it,” according to Omar.
Sanders agrees, saying “the bottom line is, the faster we help vaccinate the global population, the safer we will all be. That should be our number one priority, not maximizing the profits of pharmaceutical companies and their shareholders.”
Trump Good Links
Generic
Harris unpopular because of Biden administration’s weak ip protection policies, plan reverses and shift voters back
Bahye dole’24 diverse group of innovation-oriented organizations and individuals committed to celebrating and protecting the Bayh-Dole Act “Voters Strongly Oppose Weakening Patents, New Poll Shows” https://bayhdolecoalition.org/voters-strongly-oppose-weakening-patents-new-poll-shows/?mkt_tok=NDkwLUVIWi05OTkAAAGQvBQpxkR-LCNf_btQS9H8TF8oPAWsIYLmS63cRAipCb2FX6YG1w2ykkcAZzTOsquxzZt7E3rgUCFEAIC8FgZCV02QOlscV-Vn4GOx0zcC6l2Y
Seven in ten voters believe that it is important for the Biden administration to preserve WTO standards for protecting IP. And 77% are at least slightly concerned that the pending proposal would stifle medical research and kill American manufacturing jobs.
“This poll clearly demonstrates that voters value intellectual property protections and oppose giving away U.S. intellectual property, especially to competitors like China,” said Joseph P. Allen, Executive Director of the Bayh-Dole Coalition.
Opposition to this waiver is bipartisan, with supermajorities of both Republicans and Democrats preferring political candidates who prioritize protecting American inventors’ IP rights.
“Voters expect U.S. officials to resist this misguided proposal which would undermine the American economy,” said Allen.
The poll, conducted by Morning Consult, surveyed 2,202 registered voters between December 22 and December 24. Results have a margin of error of plus or minus two percentage points.
E-commerce
Plan implements a similar plan to shop safe, Amazon supports
Robby Soave, 2022 – senior editor at Reason “The SHOP SAFE Act Would Entrench Amazon's Dominance: An ill-conceived proposal to increase liability for online marketplaces could effectively outlaw all but the biggest players.”reason.com [BLOG] Reason Foundation. Jan 19, 2022. Proquest. Accessed via University of Michigan //DH
The SHOP SAFE Act is a typical piece of safety-themed legislation, in that it would accomplish something much more sinister than what its name promises. Far from protecting online shoppers from harmful products, this legislation—sponsored by Rep. Jerry Nadler (D–N.Y.) in the House and by Sen. Chris Coons (D–Del.) in the Senate—threatens to obliterate online marketplaces by subjecting them to increased liability.
Democrats are currently plotting to add the SHOP SAFE Act to the bipartisan Endless Frontier Act, a technology infrastructure bill that already passed in the Senate and could certainly become law sometime in the future. This would be a disaster; the SHOP SAFE Act has massive problems that would make it very difficult for smaller online marketplaces to survive. While the bill is undoubtedly intended to seize on Congress's anti–Big Tech fervor, the likely outcome of its passage would be the solidification of Amazon's dominance.
That's because the bill would raise the liability threshold for online marketplaces: not just Amazon and eBay, but also Etsy, Facebook, and virtually any internet platform where goods can be sold—even Gmail.
"The current bill language could be interpreted to cover anything from Craigslist to Gmail—basically any online service that can play a role in advertising, selling, or delivering goods," argues the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). "This isn't just some reach reading that we came up with; at least two anti-counterfeiting organizations supporting SHOP SAFE have urged Congress to make sure it applies even to Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp."
Any online platform where goods can theoretically be exchanged could be liable if those goods were counterfeit and "implicate health and safety," per the bill's wording. Needless to say, this is extremely broad language that could scare the big platforms' would-be competitors out of the market entirely. One of the easiest ways to entrench Amazon as the default online marketplace would be for regulators to add a crippling liability burden that only Amazon is wealthy enough to survive.
If that weren't bad enough, the SHOP SAFE Act also raises serious digital privacy concerns, by requiring platforms to collect information from their vendors. Given how vast the coverage is here, EFF worries about a world in which users have to "provide a copy of your driver's license to Craigslist just to advertise your garage sale or sell a used bike."
Eric Goldman, a professor of law at Santa Clara University, describes the bill as a massive invasion of privacy that could inadvertently help hackers obtain damaging information on buyers and sellers.
"This bill will kill online marketplaces and make markets less efficient," he writes. "The net competitive effects, then, are that consumers will pay higher prices, consumers will lose their ability to find long-tail items and incur higher search costs to do so, existing market leaders will consolidate their dominant positions, and hundreds of thousands of people will lose their jobs."
Gen AI
Voters want major Gen AI reform, wins bipartisan votes
U-Chicago 23
University of Chicago News; News organization for the University of Chicago, 11/6/24, , Accessed 7/25/24 UChicago Harris/AP-NORC poll shows majority believe AI will increase spread of election misinformation, University of Chicago News, https://news.uchicago.edu/story/poll-finds-bipartisan-concern-about-use-artificial-intelligence-2024-elections AM-COP
The public is worried about thew role AI could play in spreading false election information. Most adults (58%) believe that the use of AI will increase the spread of misinformation during the 2024 presidential election, and those who are more familiar with AI tools are more likely to say its use will increase the spread of misinformation (66% vs 51%).
The survey reveals that about 8 in 10 adults believe that technology companies, social media companies, the news media, and the federal government all share at least some responsibility when it comes to preventing the spread of misinformation by AI.
There is bipartisan support when it comes to a variety of actions to address the use of AI in the election. Majorities favor the federal government banning AI-generated content that contains false or misleading images in political ads (66%), technology companies labeling all AI-generated content made on their platforms (65%), and politicians and the groups that support them pledging not to use AI-generated content in their campaigns (62%).
“The findings highlight that the public is very skeptical about any positive impacts from AI being used in the 2024 presidential elections,” said David Sterrett, a senior research scientist at NORC. “Given all the concerns about AI, majorities of both Democrats and Republicans seem open to various actions to regulate the use of AI ahead of the 2024 election.”
Pharma Patents
Plan brings Big Pharma to new Harris administration – undoes unpopular decision
Ian Lopez’24 Senior health report at bloomberg law, graduate of Colombia college Chicago “Backlash Builds Over Biden Plan for Seizing Drug Patents” https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/backlash-builds-over-biden-plan-for-seizing-drug-patents
The pharmaceutical industry, Trump and Obama administration officials, and others are urging the Biden administration to reconsider a controversial plan for seizing patents on a drug when its cost gets too high, claiming the approach misinterprets decades-old law and threatens the delicate pipeline that produces innovative, life-saving drugs.
Over 500 comments were filed by the Feb. 6 deadline for groups and individuals to weigh in on the Biden administration’s framework for the federal government to use its march-in rights. The proposal lays out the Biden administration’s stance in a longstanding debate over whether price is a justifiable reason for the government to “march in” and take over a patent on technology developed with the help of taxpayer dollars and then license it to an outside manufacturer.
The Biden plan is already drawing blowback from a broad swath of players in the innovation space. A collection of former US Patent and Trademark Office directors and other government officials under the George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations wrote to warn that the proposed framework, if adopted, would prove destabilizing.
The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America likewise is urging the administration to pump the breaks, calling the plan a misinterpretation of the Bayh-Dole Act, which established march-in rights.
“The proposed framework sounds politically sexy—grab patents of companies if their drug prices are too high. But the impact will disappoint consumers—even the most aggressive efforts to reinterpret march-in rights would not affect 99 percent of drugs,” the Council for Affordable Health Coverage wrote.
“While the Biden Administration talks tough, its approach will simply chill investment in new treatments and cures because the threat of the government stealing patents hangs over every new idea’s success,” the council said.
Big Pharma backs Biden Administration (Harris now) when patent waivers gets blocked
Carmen Paun’24 global health reporter for POLITICO, and spent five years covering health policy at POLITICO in Brussels, Biden’s got pharma’s back in global pandemic treaty negotiations
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/01/29/bidens-got-pharmas-back-in-global-pandemic-treaty-negotiations-00138133
But in the international arena, they’re united in an effort to block developing countries from access to U.S. firms’ patented information on vaccines and drugs when the next pandemic hits.
U.S. negotiators working on a global treaty that aims to guide the world’s response whenever a new deadly pathogen emerges have rejected proposals to loosen patent protections, a step that could enable developing countries to quickly make their own versions of the vaccines and drugs.
For those countries and their advocates, it’s a striking stance — given what happened after Covid arrived: They shared data about new variants only to see the rich world hoard most of the vaccines.
“There’s a contradiction, [an] enormous amount of hypocrisy,” said James Love, director of Knowledge Ecology International, who advocates for wider access to health products, of the Biden administration’s position.
Love said the U.S. has used some of the same measures developing countries have proposed to limit intellectual property rights in the production of Covid vaccines at home.
Asked about the Biden administration’s stance, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said it was seeking a balance.
“The U.S. wants outcomes that are effective and operationally viable to protect national and global health, promote innovation and promote access to medical countermeasures, strengthen investments in global health security, secure additional governmental commitments and responsibility for pandemic prevention and response, that are consistent with U.S. laws, policies and practices,” the spokesperson said.
The State Department declined a request to interview the chief U.S. negotiator, Pamela Hamamoto, who has said that strong intellectual property rights enabled the quick development of vaccines and therapeutics that saved millions of lives during the pandemic.
The U.S. position in the treaty negotiations — in contrast to Biden’s aggressive push to force drugmakers to lower their prices in the U.S. via pending Medicare price negotiations — shows there are limits to the president’s willingness to upend the patent system.
Unlike Medicare price negotiations, pharma views the erosion of intellectual property rights as an existential threat to its business model, said Lawrence Gostin, faculty director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University. He has advised the White House and the World Health Organization, the U.N. body that convened the pandemic treaty negotiations.
“The Biden administration is willing to push the envelope, but they’re not willing to break the business model,” Gostin said.
Waivers
American voters favor strengthening IP protections – TRIPS isn’t popular
BDC 24 [Published Jan 18, 2024; “U.S. voters favor strong IP protection”; https://www.bio.org/gooddaybio-archive/us-voters-favor-strong-ip-protection] /// GH - CS
A new poll finds most Americans want the Biden administration to protect IP rights on the international stage, and both consumers and investors are increasingly interested in products made from captured carbon. (560 words, 2 minutes, 48 seconds) U.S. voters favor strong international IP protection, poll finds Most Americans want the Biden administration to protect intellectual property rights at the World Trade Organization (WTO) and express concerns about waiving those rights, finds a new poll commissioned by the Bayh-Dole Coalition. Why it matters: In 2022, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) agreed to a waiver of WTO IP protection for COVID vaccines. Now, USTR is considering an extension of the waiver to include COVID diagnostics and therapeutics. The key finding: 7 in 10 respondents said it’s important for the Biden administration to preserve WTO IP protections, and most said it’s very important, finds a Morning Consult poll of 2,202 U.S. adults conducted Dec. 22-24. China is a concern: 68% said U.S. adversaries like China should not be able to replicate American-made technologies without permission from the inventors—with only 11% disagreeing and 21% saying they don’t know. Vote for IP protection: 66% would be inclined to vote for a candidate who prioritizes stronger IP rights, while 11% said they prefer a candidate who weakens IP rights. IP waivers aren’t necessary—and the COVID vaccine IP waiver was never used because IP was never a barrier to global distribution, 19 House Democrats recently told USTR. BIO agrees: “There is no credible evidence supporting the need for an expanded TRIPS waiver,” said BIO Chief Policy Officer John Murphy.
US voters hate the waiver – they think it’s useless and a net negative for America – overwhelming empirics.
Loiaciano 24 [Hannah Loiacino is a poll reporter for pharma.org; a research and politics reporting group. She is a special correspondent in the 2024 Election. “Americans agree that expanding the TRIPS waiver will harm US global manufacturing” 01-29-2024 https://phrma.org/Blog/New-poll-Americans-agree-that-expanding-the-TRIPS-waiver-will-harm-US-global-manufacturing-and-innovation-leadership//nealgupta
Despite the end of the COVID-19 public health emergency, the World Trade Organization (WTO) continues to consider expanding the 2022 intellectual property (IP) waiver on COVID-19 vaccines to include treatments and tests under the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).
The Biden Administration is still considering whether to support the expansion, despite voters’ clear support of IP protections. A recent Morning Consult/PhRMA poll found that Americans are deeply concerned about how a waiver expansion would weaken the innovation environment, threaten U.S. manufacturing and jobs, and cede innovation leadership to other countries.
Here are four insights from the survey:
1. Americans believe waiving IP will not help pandemic preparedness.
When asked how the U.S. can prepare for the next global pandemic, the overwhelming majority (76%) of Americans say that U.S. companies should build on their research and manufacturing capabilities. Less than one in four (24%) prefer waiving IP.
Similarly, 71% believe that trade, regulatory and distribution channels are the major b

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