Talk is the Best Medicine

This episode discusses an important and often overlooked part of the vaccine process: post-approval obstacles. Most vaccine failure occurs at the preclinical or clinical level, but in many cases, vaccines that would be otherwise successful have been hindered after their release to the market. TPPs or Target-product profiles can be a key way to plan for and overcome post-approval obstacles. Today’s conversation will be focused on these TPPs, and how we might better be using them along with other strategies to overcome post-approval obstacles.

This episode focuses on a discussion of solidarity, a way we might reconceptualize our priorities and ethics when considering global health, a principle that takes its cues from sub-Saharan Africa. We talk about reframing COVID-19 as a “syndemic” instead of a pandemic, focusing on the convergence of social forces aside from simply the clinical aspects, as well as the African principles that inspire “solidarity ethics,” and what exactly that means.

Sharonann Lynch has worked for more than 20 years in the global health, access to medicines, and humanitarian fields. Dr. Ngozi Erondu is an Infectious Disease Epidemiologist, recognized global health security expert, and public health thought leader.

Robert Steinglass joins us for another episode of Talk is the Best Medicine. Steinglass led immunization programs for several decades, strengthening routine immunization and disease prevention programs.

Sanjoy Bhattacharya is Co-Director of the History Department’s Centre for Global Health Histories and the Head of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Global Health Histories at the University of York.

Professor Adrian Towse is Director Emeritus of the Office of Health Economics in the UK and has held visiting positions at the University of Oxford, London School of Economics and the University of York. His current research includes incentives for new drugs and vaccines to tackle antimicrobial resistance, the use of ‘risk-sharing’ arrangements between healthcare payers and pharmaceutical companies, including value-based pricing approaches.

Leif Wenar is a Professor of Philosophy, Law and Political Science at Stanford University. He is the author of Blood Oil: Tyrants, Violence, and the Rules that Run the World and the author-meets-critics volume Beyond Blood Oil: Philosophy, Policy, and the Future.

Esther Chirwa is a District Medical Officer at the Ministry of Health Malawi. She is a member of the National COVID-19 vaccine taskforce which is responsible for COVID-19 vaccine rollout and implementation in Malawi.

Lisa Herzog is a Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics of the University of Groningen. She has published on the philosophical dimensions of markets (both historically and systemically), liberalism and social justice, ethics in organizations and the future of work.

James W. Nickel is a Professor of Law and Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Miami School of Law. He teaches and writes in human rights law and theory, political philosophy, philosophy of law, and constitutional law.