As 25m people in Shanghai enter their fourth week in stringent isolation, authorities are playing an increasingly desperate game of cat and mouse. But it’s not just omicron that they are attempting to stamp out. Chinese censors are battling to block an outpouring of online anger, including the “Voice of April” – a six-minute montage…
The US unexpectedly announced last week that it would join India, South Africa and others in supporting a proposal at the World Trade Organisation to temporarily suspend intellectual property (IP) rights for Covid vaccines. In theory, this would free up other companies to make copies of proprietary vaccines owned by the likes of Pfizer and…
There are few more contentious and confounding moral issues in the modern world than drug patents. It’s hard to think of another area where commercial logic so frequently butts heads with societal need and capitalism can pose such ethical angst. If you have the ability to cure a disease, how can you possibly withhold it…
