Help Me, ATS: Why oh why does the CDC own vaccine patents???

This is rather old news that somehow skipped my radar at the time, and it started with this interview of Robert Kennedy at EcoWatch:

Mercury, Vaccines and the CDC's Worst Nightmare

Wherein Kennedy made the claim:

The CDC is a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry. The agency owns more than 20 vaccine patents and purchases and sells $4.1 billion in vaccines annually.

Which was followed up -- and confirmed -- by GreenMedInfo here:

Examining RFK Jr.'s claim that the CDC “Owns over 20 vaccine patents.”

I have been around long enough to know that vaccine claims have to be checked and rechecked. And since this is a very old claim, one that I would like to be able to state (if it is true), I decided to review it.

I am fortunate to have, as one of my partners in advocacy, fellow autism parent Mark Blaxill, an Intellectual Property expert who has been employed by billion dollar corporations to manage their patents. Blaxill was the man who found out that HHS, through NIH, owns patents on all HPV vaccines, and receives a percentage of the profits for each dose of Gardasil and Cervarix administered anywhere in the world. He published the stunning revelation in a detailed three part expose entitled, A License to Kill? Part 1: How A Public-Private Partnership Made the Government Merck’s Gardasil Partner.”

When I contacted Blaxill to ask how to run a patent search, he was kind enough to do it for me. He found 57 granted US patents with the CDC listed as an assignee. You can see the search results here..

Why??? Qui bono? And how???

I understand how CDC doctors with private financial interests in pharmaceutical companies might (and do) benefit by virtue of their positions, and why/how this is a problem, such as Dr. Paul Offit:

In 2003, UPI reporter Mark Benjamin wrote an in depth piece on the conflicts of interest (COI) in vaccine safety entitled, “UPI Investigates: The vaccine conflict.” We have Mr. Benjamin to thank for bringing the patents and COIs held by the members of the CDC Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, including Dr. Paul Offit, to the public's attention, and for documenting the early years of Offit's increasingly absurd claims. In this article, Offit asserts that holding vaccine patents, being funded by Merck and having Merck buy and distribute, to physicians, his book extolling the virtues of vaccines, does not compromise his objectivity as a member of the committee that determines what is and is not sound vaccine practice

But I don't understand how a government entity owning patents profits anyone... so why? What am I missing?

Give me your best guesses, ATS. The good, the bad, and the fugly. Thank you!

Further reading and reference links:

Mercury, Vaccines and the CDC's Worst Nightmare
Examining RFK Jr.'s claim that the CDC “Owns over 20 vaccine patents.”
CDC cronyism exposed: Scientists with integrity call out the agency’s corrupt industry ties
SPIDER Bites CDC
How Conflicts of Interest Have Corrupted the CDC

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Excellent thread Ill be back shortly with all of my nefarious musings

a reply to: BlueJacket

Looking forward to hear your thoughts

The same reason the NRL owns speech recognition patents, and the DOE owns explosives patents?

Because a patent controls exclusive rights. If the CDC owns part of it and through them the government, then no one company ever owns the exclusive mechanism to something that has the power to stop a deadly disease entirely.

Plus they also have controlling interest over the source strains the vaccines are generated from so those can be kept tabs on.

For a forum that so distrusts big corporations, being distrustful of this regulatory move shows how little you understand the corporate mechanisms by which most of our most effective means to control our most deadly diseases are made.

Do you want companies running around with their own strains of smallpox and polio and creating their own vaccines that work exclusively for those and then creating incidents where suddenly those vaccines and only those vaccines work because that's what you would be inviting. This is a mechanism that helps make that all that much harder because it legally means the CDC is part owner in these ventures and of these organisms now.

Husband's facility just had an inspection where they had to verify all their organism they use to make their vaccines, both how much and how they maintain it. And they only make animal vaccines, but some of those organisms can infect humans if mishandled.

originally posted by: Bedlam
The same reason the NRL owns speech recognition patents, and the DOE owns explosives patents?

Which is???

Sorry. It may seem obvious to you, but not me. Draw me a picture...

a reply to: Boadicea

A vaccine patent does not give you the right to manufacture vaccines. In fact, each vaccine has dozens of different patents (for all its ingredietns), and not all belong to the CDC.

The CDC’s patents bring in less than 0.1% of their budget. That does not qualify as a financial partnership with anyone, including Big Pharma. CDC Financial Resources Annual Report

Also, the CDC does not licence the vaccines themselves, the NIH does.

Green Med info, Eco Watch, Kennedy, Trump, Natural News, they all twist the truth to fit their own agenda: disinformation. Once again they are publishing empty conspiracy theories with no real evidence to back it up.

a reply to: Boadicea

It seems as though you've only bothered to 'research' the conspirital side of this.

Do you really want to know? Or is the big scary explanation you've found, and no doubt have accepted, enough?

a reply to: Boadicea

Help Me, ATS: Why oh why does the CDC own vaccine patents???

$$$ and Control????

a reply to: ketsuko

For a forum that so distrusts big corporations, being distrustful of this regulatory move shows how little you understand the corporate mechanisms by which most of our most effective means to control our most deadly diseases are made.

Hmmm... defensive much? Because I never qualified my curiosity in any way, shape or form... neither negative nor positive. Indeed, I plainly stated my ignorance -- i.e., no opinion -- and asked for information.

But to your point, I trust government even less than corporations, so that's a non-starter.

I appreciate the insight you did offer, so thank you. And while the attendant attitude was neither necessary nor appropriate, it was very telling, so thank you again.

originally posted by: Boadicea

originally posted by: Bedlam
The same reason the NRL owns speech recognition patents, and the DOE owns explosives patents?

Which is???

Sorry. It may seem obvious to you, but not me. Draw me a picture...

They paid for the development, or some of their employees were involved in an official capacity during the development, primarily. Many, many governmental agencies, national labs and/or military branches own or co-own patents. Some you can find, some you can't.

If I perform patentable work for SOCOM, then if it's not classified, I may be required by contract to assist a patent filing by the Army, or by SORDAC or by another group (don't ask) who the contracting group would like to be the primary patent holder. I'll be listed (at least occasionally) in the inventor's list, if it's not gagged. Sometimes the primary patent holder assignment goes to a university, oddly enough.

a reply to: stosh64

$$$ you say?

Hmm THIS article shows that the CDC got very little out of royalties, like less than $6 million...their federal budget by the way is over $7 billion.

More brain dead anti-vaccine rubbish it seems.

You guys' time to deny and deflect.... usual stuff...

originally posted by: Agartha
a reply to: Boadicea

The CDC’s patents bring in less than 0.1% of their budget. That does not qualify as a financial partnership with anyone, including Big Pharma. CDC Financial Resources Annual Report

Thank you for posting that link. I meant to include that information in the OP and then completely forgot it -- d'oh! I thought maybe the patents were to offset operating expenses, but that wouldn't seem to be the case. And that's okay. I don't want the government profiting like that anyway.

Also, the CDC does not licence the vaccines themselves, the NIH does.

Okay, fair enough. But my question applies to why any government entity would own patents, not just the CDC.

Green Med info, Eco Watch, Kennedy, Trump, Natural News, they all twist the truth to fit their own agenda: disinformation. Once again they are publishing empty conspiracy theories with no real evidence to back it up.

Well, okay. I obviously wasn't satisfied with the totality of information they provided, or I wouldn't be here asking for more. But, just as obviously, neither could I find any reputable (cough! cough!) sources giving any information, much less more or better information.

And I'm not sure what you're getting at anyway, since you seem to agree that the government does in fact own vaccine and vaccine-related patents, so how have they twisted the truth? Or am I misunderstanding and you're saying that the government doesn't have any such patents?

a reply to: ketsuko

I agree with all of this. People claim they hate it when companies jack up the rates for products like the EpiPen, so just imagine if vaccine companies did that with vaccines.

a reply to: Bedlam

Thank you -- I appreciate your response... and I apologize for being so dense -- but I am!

They paid for the development, or some of their employees were involved in an official capacity during the development, primarily. Many, many governmental agencies, national labs and/or military branches own or co-own patents.

But why???

Here's where I'm stuck: If the government paid for the research and development, then the taxpayer paid for the research and development, and the fruits of that investment should belong to the people... it seems to me that our best interests would be served by making that research and development open to the free market, increasing competition and maximizing supply.

Except in cases where, as another poster pointed out, there is a reasonable interest in regulating/controlling the product for safety purposes... such as weapons, or viruses, etc.

originally posted by: Boadicea

But why???

Because the gubmint rarely does things for itself, it happens through contractors or national labs. Thus does DARPA put forth an idea, get proposals on their implementation, then pay for the development whilst keeping an interest in the patents thus derived.

Here's where I'm stuck: If the government paid for the research and development, then the taxpayer paid for the research and development, and the fruits of that investment should belong to the people... it seems to me that our best interests would be served by making that research and development open to the free market, increasing competition and maximizing supply.

Except in cases where, as another poster pointed out, there is a reasonable interest in regulating/controlling the product for safety purposes... such as weapons, or viruses, etc.

And they often are. In a YUUUGE percentage of cases, the contractor, the university, or the gubmint or some agent thereunto publishes the work. If you want to use it, you'll have to pay an often zero or nominal fee for the license, but it gives the gubmint a finger on where it's going and what it'll be used for, because they often want THAT as well.

And in some cases, if you come up with something especially nice, they keep it for themselves by gagging the patent and NOT publishing it.

Or, they may want to contribute to the on-going work at a university, then the patent ends up being assigned to Georgia Tech or an unnamed school in Florida, or SRI, or you name it. It's not THAT unusual that a front for a particular military group ends up getting some undocumented side income from a patent. Or a grant. Ahem.

edit: I might add, I've more than once assigned to Ga Tech on Army projects. Not that I mind, being an alumnus, but GT is a frequent recipient of such things. In the business world, Raytheon and the companies formerly known as SAIC have many many patents they didn't strictly have people working on, tbh.

originally posted by: enlightenedservant
a reply to: ketsuko

People claim they hate it when companies jack up the rates for products like the EpiPen...

Haha! I had to laugh at the way you phrased this... "people claim they hate it"??? Because they're lying and they really like it when "companies jack up the rates"? I'm sure you didn't mean it that way, it's just the way I read it... but it was funny. Thanks for the smile!

...so just imagine if vaccine companies did that with vaccines.

Seriously now... that's kind of where I'm stuck in this. Patents create a monopoly, prohibit competition, and necessarily "jack up the rates." If the taxpayer is paying for the research, development, and/or manufacture of a product -- and it seems we are -- then we own that product and we should be the first and primary beneficiaries. The profits don't seem to be enough to seriously offset the costs, so we're not benefiting that way either.

a reply to: Bedlam

Thank you. I really appreciate your insight here, and you've given me much more to think about. I can see now how patents can be a practical and effective tool in some situations.

Of course, they can also be abused, but that's true of anything/everything, eh? That's just the nature of the beast!

a reply to: stosh64

$$$ and Control????

The dollars don't seem to be a factor... they're not making much at all!

The control is a whole 'nother matter though. That does concern me.

a reply to: ketsuko

That's all easily fixed--put the recipe and instructions on how to produce the vaccine in the open for all to have, then you negate the need to "own" anything for a vaccine.

Government should not own the patent to anything--they have the means to keep things that they do a secret. The only reason to control a patent is to stop others from producing it at will, plain and simple.

While I see your point about too many people having access to deadly strains of diseases, again, that could be controlled by regulation--there's no need to own patents.

When a government owns patents and then guilts/mandates the mass consumption of that product, there's an issue there.