Tag Archives: waiver

Even if you don’t believe in #Covid #vaccines, you should support the #TRIPSWaiver

Covid-19 is really exposing the ethical vacuum at the heart of the pharmaceutical industry, isn’t it?

Vaccines have been around for more than 220 years. Our kids are routinely vaccinated against diseases like measles, mumps, rubella and tetanus; we have ourselves vaccinated against more exotic diseases if we plan to travel to foreign countries. The companies making the vaccines are paid for them, and that’s fine.

But Covid-19 has created a huge opportunity for those companies because their vaccines are desperately-needed to stop people dying in a rapidly-spreading pandemic. They are charging huge amounts of money for their jabs and this is restricting the distribution of these substances around the world; if a country’s government can’t afford it, the people don’t get it.

The knock-on effect is that the people of these countries catch Covid-19 and it mutates, creating new variants, some of which are immune to the current vaccines.

It is unreasonable to restrict life-saving treatments in this way; it creates further threat to us all.

But the pharmaceutical companies are hiding behind TRIPS – the Agreement of Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property that restricts the right to manufacture vaccines to those companies that have patented them.

Labour MP Clive Lewis is supporting calls that initially came from South Africa and India to waive these companies’ patent rights temporarily, in order to make all of us safer, rather than just making a small number of shareholders richer.

Here’s his explanation of the issues – which shouldn’t be discounted just because he’s mistaken about the name of the new variant:

Even if you don’t want vaccination for yourself – for whatever reasons of your own, this is something you should be able to support in order to allow other people to have the choice that you’ve taken.

But here’s one thing:

Isn’t it sad that Mr Lewis has also to appeal to his own party leader, Keir Starmer, to do the right thing?

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New rules at DWP – to stop benefit claimants getting help from elected representatives

Underclass: If you’re a benefit claimant, the DWP wants to prevent you getting help from your elected representatives.

The Tories are trying hard to turn benefit claimants into an underclass – now they are being forbidden from seeking advice from their elected representatives.

New changes imposed by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) require claimants who have approached politicians for help with a benefit appeal to sign a waiver form explaining why they have done so, rather than going directly to the Job Centre.

The changes also require claimants to state exactly what they have discussed with their elected representative before information can be disclosed regarding an appeal.

To This Writer, the explanation would be simple: they want their appeal to succeed, and it has more chance with a politician helping than with DWP lickspittles who get a bonus every time a claimant is knocked off the books.

Recently it seems an approach to local newspapers can also be rewarding.

Politicians themselves are up in arms about it.

SNP MSP Linda Fabiani was quoted as saying:

The Universal Credit system is fundamentally flawed and needs to be halted. With so many loopholes and barriers put in place to stop claimants receiving the support they are entitled to, it’s no wonder people come to their MSP for support.

Neither the DWP, nor Boris Johnson’s Tory government, has the right to stop people approaching their elected representatives for help and support – that’s what we’re here to do.

This is just the latest extension of the hostile environment introduced by this right-wing Tory government designed to lock people out from receiving the financial support they are entitled to.

Quite right too.

And if this rule is being rolled out across the UK, it is every local politician’s duty to fight it.

Source: Tories Trying to Keep Universal Credit Claimants In The Dark Say SNP – Association of Pensions & Benefits Claimants CIC

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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Buy Vox Political books so we can continue
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The Livingstone Presumption is now available
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Health Warning: Government! is now available
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HWG PrintHWG eBook

The first collection, Strong Words and Hard Times,
is still available in either print or eBook format here:

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