Thank you again for signing my petition. I just wanted to share a great article from Slate outlining the issues highlighted in this petition. It's definitely worth a read. Let's keep up the pressure and spread this petition! 

"These wealthy countries are also blocking another potential avenue to improve vaccine access: waiving intellectual property rights on COVID-related technologies. Most vaccine developers are private companies, so the vaccines are their intellectual property. There’s a long-standing debate about intellectual property in general in global health circles—while some point to IP as a way to provide incentives for investment in innovative products, there are downsides to giving companies all the power when it comes to vaccine manufacturing and distribution. IP can be a barrier for manufacturers that want to create generic versions of the vaccine, which could increase supply but, to big companies’ detriment, drive down their prices. Those generics would give buyers—in this case, countries—some leverage in negotiations with companies; they could realistically threaten to import generics or create their own, says Abdool Karim."