Pandemics, Profits and Proles

Much has been written in the course of the COVID-19 crisis about the necessity of public health infrastructure. In the United States, the pandemic has amplified socialdemocratic calls for a public healthcare system.

Medical research and pharmaceutical development are often left out of these demands. The present situation demonstrates that state health insurance is not enough to protect human health. All aspects of medicine – education, research, industry, infrastructure, and clinical practice – must be centralized under the proletariat’s control.

The example of Remdesivir, an antiviral drug developed by Gilead Sciences, illustrates the issues inherent in medical development for profit. Gilead, the thirteenth-largest pharmaceutical company in the world, has been reluctant to participate in drug trials in China for fear of losing control of its intellectual property. A Chinese research laboratory, for its part, has applied for a patent on the use of Remdesivir to treat COVID-19. As the number of infections and deaths grows by the day, international capitalism remains concerned with its property regime.

The search for a vaccine further demonstrates the failing of bourgeois medicine. At present there are at least 20 separate companies working on vaccine development. Each has its own profit motives, its own methods, and its own intellectual property concerns. The countries in which they operate have their own national interests to protect. Several academic institutions are also running their own searches.

This epitomizes the anarchy of production. If ever there has been a time for the centralization of the medical industry, it is in response to the current pandemic.

The international proletariat should have exclusive and unified control over all aspects of medicine. Medical discoveries are the common possession of all of humanity, thus there must be a common project to put them into practical use.