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The ideas and innovators shaping health care | | | | |  | | By Carmen Paun, Ben Leonard and Ruth Reader | PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off next week for the holidays but will return to your inboxes on Tuesday, Jan. 3.
| | | |  Developing countries want compensation for their contributions to science. | Getty Images | The United Nations agreement this week to update the Convention on Biological Diversity and boost efforts to preserve the health of the Earth could impact drug and vaccine development in a future health emergency. Nearly 200 countries — though not the United States — agreed at a summit in Montreal that when genetic material from plants and animals needed to develop new drugs come from low-income countries, they should be compensated. What’s this about? Researchers usually share genetic information freely in public databases, which are used to develop everything from new vaccines to more drought-resistant crops. Much of the genetic information originates in developing countries, which don’t always reap the benefits of their contribution, POLITICO’s Louise Guillot and Ashleigh Furlong report. At the U.N. meeting: — Brazil, Indonesia and African countries lobbied to get more affluent nations and companies to compensate them. — The pharmaceutical industry and some scientists opposed the push, arguing that a new set of rules could threaten the speed and openness of data sharing, especially during an emergency. The deal reached, while far from setting up a system for compensation, is a victory for low-income countries and could allow them to essentially tax companies for using the genetic information the countries contribute. What’s next: Countries will start discussing the details at the next U.N. biodiversity summit in Turkey in 2024. Whither the U.S.? After U.S. diplomats helped to develop the Convention on Biological Diversity in the 1980s, then-President George H.W. Bush declined to sign the final agreement in 1992, citing concerns about U.S. intellectual property, international control of environmental regulation and pressure to support low-income countries. Former President Bill Clinton signed the agreement but failed to convince enough Republicans in the Senate to reach the two-thirds majority needed for ratification. No president has tried since.
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Shawn Zeller | This is where we explore the ideas and innovators shaping health care. Due to a slew of injuries, a college football player at Oregon was recently granted his ninth year of eligibility. He’s already gotten a bachelor’s and a master’s degree, so he’ll need to find something else to get credit for. Would you stick around that long? Not sure if we would, but hey, there are worse things than nine years of college. Share news, tips and feedback with Ben Leonard at bleonard@politico.com, Ruth Reader at rreader@politico.com, or Carmen Paun at cpaun@politico.com. Send tips securely through SecureDrop, Signal, Telegram or WhatsApp. Today on our Pulse Check podcast, Carmen talks with Daniel Payne about the trajectory of the mpox outbreak in 2022 and what lessons we can learn from it.
| | | | | | |  Covid nasal vaccines, like this one for flu, would be nice to have, Congress says. | Getty Images | Lawmakers are concerned the U.S. is falling behind other countries in developing nasal vaccines for Covid-19. They made that clear in a summary of the fiscal 2023 omnibus funding bill released Tuesday. While no separate funding was awarded for nasal vaccines in the $1.7 trillion bill, lawmakers urged the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority “to accelerate clinical trial opportunities to achieve FDA approval for a nasal COVID-19 vaccine for which there is already existing clinical efficacy and safety data,” according to the summary. Why it matters: Many researchers believe a nasal Covid vaccine could help stop the virus’ transmission because it’s more likely than a shot to create immunity in the nose, where the virus enters the body. It also might help revive interest in vaccination if it appeals to people scared of needles, including children. But Congress hasn’t given the Biden administration any new money for an Operation Warp Speed 2.0 to develop those vaccines. Meanwhile, India has already approved a nasal Covid vaccine based on technology developed in the U.S. And, China is using an inhalable vaccine — but that doesn’t seem to be helping stem the wave of infections caused by Omicron variants and the end of the country’s “zero-Covid” policy.
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It would help if you reported your Covid test results at MakeMyTestCount.org | Ted S. Warren/AP Photo | | | Right now, we recognize that what’s going to bring an individual to the site to report a result is really contributing to this greater cause. But there’s not much in it for them at the moment.
– Andrew Weitz, program director at the National Institutes of Health | | Counting Covid cases, which is crucial to foreseeing disease surges, is even more of a guessing game today than it was early in the pandemic. Most people now use at-home tests and don’t report the results to the government. The National Institutes of Health is trying to improve the accuracy of the case count with a new website where people can report their results, called MakeMyTestCount.org. Reporting results voluntarily appeals mainly to the public-spirited, NIH Program Director Andrew Weitz said, but the agency hopes to broaden those who want to contribute by adding features, like a log of personal test results, and directing them to resources for dealing with infection. There’s reason to be optimistic that caseload figures are still useful: — The results that people report don’t live in a vacuum. PCR testing is still available, and some venues like hospitals have mandatory testing. – The website builds on a NIH program that pulled results from testing company apps, providing more than 15 million results to the agency since November 2021. — NIH hopes to boost awareness by working with test manufacturers and state and local health departments. The website allows anyone to report a test result and there's nothing to prevent people from reporting fake ones. But so far, Weitz said, the demographics of those using the tool have lined up with laboratory testing, suggesting that the “vast majority” of results reported are truthful.
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