[Congressional Bills 117th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Con. Res. 60 Introduced in House (IH)]
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117th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. CON. RES. 60
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States Government must
take steps to end the pandemic now.
_______________________________________________________________________
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
November 9, 2021
Ms. Schakowsky (for herself, Mr. Blumenauer, Ms. DeLauro, Mr. Doggett,
Mr. Castro of Texas, Mr. Espaillat, Mr. Garcia of Illinois, Ms. Lee of
California, Ms. Jacobs of California, Mr. Khanna, Mr. Krishnamoorthi,
Mr. Pocan, and Ms. Pressley) submitted the following concurrent
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, and
in addition to the Committees on Ways and Means, the Judiciary, and
Financial Services, for a period to be subsequently determined by the
Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall
within the jurisdiction of the committee concerned
_______________________________________________________________________
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States Government must
take steps to end the pandemic now.
Whereas the extraordinary circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic call for
extraordinary measures by world leaders who must choose to end the
pandemic and act accordingly;
Whereas the Delta variant that was first detected in India and increased COVID-
19 deaths worldwide, making children dangerously ill and reversing
progress in containing COVID-19, shows why ``no one is safe until
everyone is safe'';
Whereas the mismatch between the crisis faced and failure to date to deliver on
the concrete actions needed to end the pandemic is disastrous and
unacceptable;
Whereas new variants may prolong the COVID-19 crisis, and the next variant could
be the mutation that makes COVID-19 vaccines ineffective and causes
untold harm and suffering;
Whereas the only way to end the pandemic and safeguard Americans' health and
economic security is for the United States Government to deliver on
President Biden's pledge to save lives worldwide by leading the global
COVID-19 vaccination effort, including by specifically achieving the
President's goal of 70 percent global COVID-19 vaccination by the United
Nations General Assembly in September 2022;
Whereas less than 8 percent of the entire population of the African continent is
vaccinated against COVID-19, and most African nations are not projected
to reach 10 percent COVID-19 vaccination in 2021;
Whereas less than 5 percent of people in developing countries have received at
least 1 dose, and many in developing nations will not have access to
COVID-19 vaccination until 2023 absent significant increases in COVID-19
vaccine production and distribution;
Whereas absent a major increase in global production and supply of COVID-19
vaccines, treatments, diagnostic tests, and other COVID-19-related
medical supplies, the pandemic will rage largely unmitigated among a
significant share of the world's population, resulting in further
mutation of the virus and increased hospitalizations and deaths;
Whereas COVID-19 has killed 1 out of 500 Americans, and the Delta variant
elevated the global daily death tolls to 10,000 people daily;
Whereas COVID-19 is estimated to cause the United States $16,000,000,000,000 in
economic losses, accompanied by global losses that have impoverished
hundreds of millions of people worldwide;
Whereas producing and delivering many more doses of an effective COVID-19
vaccine is the only path to eradicate this virus and end the pandemic
everywhere;
Whereas rich countries have yet to ``donate'' adequate amounts of COVID-19
vaccines to low- and middle-income countries, as less than 15 percent of
the 1,970,000,000 doses pledged have actually been delivered;
Whereas an estimated 11,000,000,000 COVID-19 vaccines were needed to vaccinate
70 percent of the world's adults, and demand has since increased with
some nations initiating booster programs and child COVID-19 vaccination
plans;
Whereas a major cause of the shortage is monopoly control of how much and where
COVID-19 vaccines are made by a handful of pharmaceutical corporations
that have consolidated their control using intellectual property
barriers;
Whereas voluntary licensing arrangements have not fixed this problem given the
handful of pharmaceutical corporations that are using intellectual
property monopolies to limit production and supply, and have refused to
negotiate payment terms with qualified manufacturers in Africa, Latin
America, and Asia creating production bottlenecks and thwarting
production of COVID-19 vaccine doses around the world;
Whereas COVID-19 vaccine monopoly firms are focused not on global access, but on
profitable markets, as demonstrated by current producers prioritizing
delivery of booster doses sold at increased prices in wealthy countries
while most of the world's population remains unvaccinated against COVID-
19;
Whereas the COVAX initiative aims to only vaccinate 20 percent of the population
against COVID-19 in developing nations by the end of 2021, and is unable
to get enough supply to meet this modest goal;
Whereas people around the globe cheered when President Biden announced United
States support for the temporary waiver of some World Trade Organization
(WTO) Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS) rules;
Whereas in response to the Biden-Harris administration announcing support for a
temporary COVID-19 emergency waiver of WTO intellectual property
barriers, now more than 130 nations support a waiver of WTO intellectual
property monopolies for pharmaceutical corporations;
Whereas Germany had pushed the European Union to oppose a temporary WTO waiver,
and joined only by the United Kingdom and Switzerland, the 3 WTO members
are blocking the rest of the world's nations that seek to end a few
pharmaceutical corporations' monopoly control of COVID-19 medicines;
Whereas there has been no progress made in agreeing to a final WTO TRIPS waiver
text since the waiver was initially proposed on October 2, 2020, and
every week a waiver is not agreed to prolongs the pandemic;
Whereas breaking monopoly control over production not only means more COVID-19
vaccines, but it also will resolve COVID-19 vaccine supply chain
shortfalls;
Whereas affordable access can be quickly scaled up for the new antiviral COVID-
19 treatments that dramatically reduce death and serious illness given
that, as small molecule drugs, they can be speedily produced by
manufacturers and distributed through networks already functioning for
HIV/AIDS medicines if intellectual property barriers are eliminated
through enactment of a TRIPS waiver;
Whereas to most quickly translate enactment of a temporary COVID-19 emergency
TRIPS waiver into more COVID-19 vaccine shots in arms, more diagnostic
tests detecting outbreaks and variants, and more treatments to help save
lives, the United States must work with South Africa and other nations
supporting a waiver to conclude a final text so a waiver can be enacted;
Whereas to most quickly translate the lifting of TRIPS-imposed intellectual
property barriers into billions of COVID-19 vaccine shots in arms, the
United States must leverage the public investment in research,
development, and prepurchase of COVID-19 vaccines and exercise its
existing rights and authorities to require the COVID-19 vaccine monopoly
firms to share recipes via speedy technology transfer;
Whereas investments in international COVID-19 vaccine manufacturing hubs and
infrastructure promote United States health security, economic recovery,
and national security, and protect Americans from this pandemic and
better prepare the United States for future pandemics;
Whereas keeping Americans safe from COVID-19 and revitalizing the American
economy to build back better rely on people worldwide having access to
COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostic tests, therapeutics, and treatments as
quickly as possible; and
Whereas a temporary TRIPS waiver does not threaten giving United States mRNA
technology to China and Russia because such research has already been
conducted by scientists around the world for decades, and the patents on
the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine are licensed to the Chinese firm
Fosun Pharma to manufacture that COVID-19 vaccine for sale in China:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring),
That it is the sense of Congress that to ensure the speediest end of
the COVID-19 pandemic--
(1) United States and European governments should unite to
enact a World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement on Trade-
Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waiver,
require technology transfer, and otherwise facilitate access in
low- and middle-income countries to high-quality COVID-19 mRNA
vaccines;
(2) vital United States partners, with shared values who
also prioritize global cooperation and saving lives and
livelihoods worldwide, should unite to remove all obstacles to
global access to COVID-19 vaccines, diagnostics, treatments,
oxygen, and other medical products to advance the common goal
of quickly ending the COVID-19 pandemic;
(3) the United States Government should play its
indispensable leadership role to work with South Africa and
other nations to quickly finalize a WTO TRIPS waiver, overcome
the opposition now blocking the 130 nations that support a
waiver, and secure swift adoption of a temporary COVID-19
waiver of the patent, copyright, industrial design, and
undisclosed data provisions of the WTO TRIPS Agreement with
respect to COVID-19 vaccines, treatments, diagnostic tests, and
other medical products to prevent, contain, or treat COVID-19
and the inputs and equipment to make such medical products, so
that WTO rules no longer thwart others countries' wider
production of COVID-19 medicines;
(4) the United States Government should leverage its
massive taxpayer investments in COVID-19 vaccine development
and use existing legal authorities under the Defense Production
Act, Bayh-Dole Act, and section 1498 of title 28, United States
Code, to compel COVID-19 vaccine makers to share the COVID-19
vaccine recipe with willing, qualified companies around the
world for a fair royalty fee so more doses can be made as
quickly as possible;
(5) the United States Government should launch and help
fund a global manufacturing plan to increase and democratize
COVID-19 vaccine production in regional hubs around the world
to produce 8,000,000,000 more COVID-19 vaccine doses by
repurposing existing facilities and building new capacity,
including by allocating funds to capital expenditures to
establish additional COVID-19 mRNA vaccine manufacturing lines
and providing funding for raw materials, technology transfer,
and royalty costs to scale up production and shave years from
the global pandemic; and
(6) the United States Government has an obligation to the
American people, whose taxpayer funds helped to develop these
lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines, to ensure that doses are
ultimately delivered to those most in need around the world so
as to ensure the global COVID-19 vaccination that is necessary
to end the pandemic.
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