The Biden administration supports a global effort to cancel intellectual property protections on covid-19 vaccines. This decision is misguided and life-threatening to vulnerable Americans.

The proposal would do nothing to advance its goal of boosting vaccine access. It would, however, stifle development of breakthrough therapies for diseases including Alzheimer’s, rheumatoid arthritis and cancer that afflict America’s seniors.

The proposal is under consideration at the World Trade Organization. It was originally submitted by India and South Africa.

They claim that pharmaceutical firms’ intellectual property protections are impeding vaccine manufacturing and preventing doses from reaching developing countries.

THAT ISN’T THE case. Leading vaccine developers such as AstraZeneca, Johnson & Johnson, Moderna and Pfizer have all agreed to let foreign manufacturers license their patents at little to no cost.

These companies are also taking additional steps to make doses available to developing countries. Johnson & Johnson has pledged to allocate up to 500 million vaccines to lower-income countries. AstraZeneca promised not to take any profits from its covid vaccine while the pandemic persists.

In reality, the obstacles to getting more vaccines in more arms are insufficient infrastructure and inadequate raw materials.

Every vaccine maker is already at capacity. But there’s a global shortage of the raw materials needed to make the shots themselves.

Many countries lack the ultra-cold transportation and storage required to keep vaccines from spoiling. Intellectual property rights play no part in this. But nullifying them – as the WTO proposed – would prevent future medical breakthroughs.

CONSIDER THE CUTTING-EDGE technology underpinning the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. Both use messenger RNA, or mRNA to trigger an immune response that helps our bodies fight off the virus. Scientists have researched for decades but never successfully got into a vaccine or therapy until now.

That technology holds the key to unlocking cures or prevent other debilitating diseases such as dementia, melanoma and colorectal and prostate cancer.

The development of these vaccines and treatments could well be abandoned if the WTO proposal is approved.

If the rights to any useful drug could be stolen from its creators and given free to other companies, few companies would make such enormous investments. Potential breakthroughs will never advance beyond the lab for lack of money.

President Biden would do well to reconsider his stance on the WTO proposal.

It will hurt all Americans.

Saul Anuzis is President of 60 Plus, the American Association of Senior Citizens.

“People ask me what I’d most appreciate getting for my 87th birthday. I tell them a paternity suit.” - George Burns