During the earliest months of the coronavirus pandemic, world leaders and corporate executives alike embraced the rhetoric of social solidarity, often drawing on nostalgic memories of war efforts past and common sacrifice in the face of adversity. That rhetoric, to put it mildly, did not realize itself in the form of policy: the pandemic has disproportionately hit the most vulnerable while billionaires have made a killing.

Despite early suggestions that the knowledge and expertise required for mass production of vaccines would be widely shared, private industry has maintained control thanks to restrictive intellectual property laws designed to protect its profits — the result being a slowed rollout that puts private wealth ahead of human need, even as pharma companies reap the benefits from public subsidies and publicly funded scientific research.

Stephen Buranyi is a science journalist living in London and a former researcher in immunology who has written on vaccine politics and production for the Guardian, the New York Times, and Prospect magazine. Jacobin spoke with Buranyi about the moral and political failure that is the global pandemic response, the history of patent sharing in the fight against disease, and why Bill Gates is always wrong.