Bioprecariousness: structural violence against life in the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the impact of patents on public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Spanish Patent and Trademark Office defines patents as "a title that recognizes the right to exclusively exploit an invention, preventing others from making, selling or using it without the owner's consent". This monopoly allows high prices to be set for patented products, condemning thousands of people to what we call bioprecariousness, understood as structural violence against life due to the lack of access to basic patented products for survival (vaccines against COVID-19, seeds, antiviral medicines against COVID-19, treatments or diagnostic kits). In the context of the pandemic, bioprecariousness has become evident in the absence of vaccines in developing countries. To limit the power of patents and ease the effects of bioprecariousness, we propose to create a normative framework applicable to patent ethics committees that grant patents not only according to technical criteria, but also according to ethical criteria such as: responsibility and caution; global justice; and capabilities and human development.