Last updated on March 2nd, 2023 at 01:11 pm

If you follow the anti-vaccine world, you will hear Robert F Kennedy Jr often claim that there are CDC vaccine patents that are so valuable that the CDC itself sets aside all morality and ethics to endorse the vaccines developed through these patents just to make more money for the CDC.

Kennedy, who once threw himself at Donald Trump in an effort to head a Vaccine Commission, has made this claim for several years now, but repeated it in an interview, stating that, “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.”

Typically, Kennedy provides absolutely nothing in the form of supporting evidence. It makes no sense to argue against an imaginary claim – this is a pretty good example of an opinion rather than facts.

But along comes Ginger Taylor, one of the most ardent and science-ignoring anti-vaccine activists around these parts. In fact, she inspired my article entitled, Vaccines and autism science say they are unrelated. 

Taylor, who apparently has an autistic child, believes that vaccines “damaged” her child because, as a mother, she knows more than actual scientists. She considers science to be an elitist pursuit, it’s not data and evidence that matter but only her opinion.

Seriously, Taylor has an utter lack of self-awareness, which apparently broke one of Orac’s favorite Big Pharma Irony Meters™. Her opinion of her own scientific knowledge, i.e. her Dunning-Kruger cognitive bias, is betrayed by the reality of the vast mountain of scientific knowledge supporting the safety and effectiveness of vaccines.

So this same Ginger, the vaccine-denier that she is, decided to write an article with another torturous description of the CDC vaccine patents conspiracy theory, trying to support Kennedy’s outlandish claims. And she wrote this article in GreenMedInfo, one of the most ignorant anti-science websites on the interwebs, just a bit below NaturalNews in quality.

The problems with Taylor’s article are multi-fold – but generally, like so many other anti-vaccine zealots, they think they know a lot about a topic based on their 15 minutes of Google search time, rather than doing the tens of thousands of hours of actual vaccine research using science.

Taylor is utterly uneducated about and inexperienced with not only science but also patents – she gets nearly everything about her conspiracy theory totally wrong. 

So here we go, debunking the anti-vaccine myth of the CDC vaccine patents.

Let’s talk about patents

I’m going to try to synthesize what you should know about patents into a few sentences. This does not make me or you an expert on patent law, but it should suffice, at least enough to understand how patents work in the pharmaceutical world.

A patent is considered intellectual property, that is, an idea (say new technology) that is considered property no different than real estate or a car. Because we can’t feel or see ideas before they’re manufactured,  sovereign states, such as the USA, grant an inventor or owner of that intellectual property a set of exclusive rights for a limited period of time. In exchange, the inventor must provide detailed public disclosures of his or her intellectual property.

Patents describe, in detail, all aspects of intellectual property. They list out claims (in numerical order) that the inventor thinks are critical and unique features of the invention. The patent also describes related patents, which may or may not be crucial to the one being proposed.

A patent can be on a product, but it also could be a process that makes a product. In other words, you could patent a technique to manufacture a product that is unique from other processes. Finally, you can patent a design, which may not make a product appear different, though functionally similar to others.

Patents are not a license to manufacture

One thing that Ginger Taylor gets wrong (amongst so many things, it’s impossible to count) about patents is that they are not a license to manufacture anything. Let’s leave vaccines for a bit and take a look at your iPhone (or Android, just to save the comments section from arguments about Apple vs everyone).

Apple has several thousand patents that protect the iPhone’s intellectual property – there isn’t one patent that rules them all for Apple to manufacture and market the iPhone. Each patent they own or license protects a small part of the phone – cameras, the antenna, the chips, the screen, touch technology, fonts – way too many to list.

Moreover, Apple licenses patents from numerous other companies that are necessary to manufacture the iPhone – just to make this weirder, Apple licenses technology from competitors (and they license it from Apple). In other words, Apple pays other companies a percentage of the sales price of the iPhone (called royalties) so that they can use the technology.

That’s why a patent does not confer to the buyer or licensor of that patent rights to manufacture anything. They need to acquire or license every single patent that might conceivably be needed to manufacture an iPhone or a vaccine.

Furthermore, patents themselves do not necessarily mean that the design works. For example, one does not file a patent to state that a vaccine works. In the USA, only the FDA has the authority to determine if a vaccine works and that only happens after large clinical trials. A patent is not even part of the consideration of a New Drug Application to the FDA.

A patent application, at least these days, includes verbiage that is generally written by an attorney, sent to the Patent Office for review. It describes how the design could work, with drawings and other backup information. So even if you find a patent on something, it does not imply that it works. I’m guessing that of those thousands of patents that cover the iPhone, a number of them are for non-working inventions, but one claim of that invention may be necessary to protect the iPhone’s overall intellectual property.

I’m trying to oversimplify the patent process, but it’s almost impossible to describe adequately all the aspects of patenting complex technology. There isn’t a book in the iPhone package that tells you every single patent that covers it. They generally only list the 4 or 5 broad patents on the phone, without making public each of the 1300 patents.

In general, a patent attorney (which, to remind the reader, Ginger Taylor is not), would have to look through each patent, then try to find the associated patents. This can take years. If done incorrectly, it could be the basis of lots of very expensive litigation.

Patents on vaccines

With regards to patents on vaccines, in general, there is never one patent for that vaccine. One vaccine may rely on a hundred other patents, some owned by the manufacturer, and some licensed from individuals and groups, such as the CDC vaccine patents.

Think about it – one vaccine may have patents for the antigen, the adjuvant, the buffer, the delivery method, the manufacturing processes, and literally a hundred other bits that are required to bring that vaccine to the market.

Let’s say there are 100 patents that cover the manufacturing of Gardasil. None of those patents alone would allow the manufacturer to sell Gardasil – it can only be manufactured, generally free of patent lawsuits, if all of the various patents are acquired or licensed. And even then, it’s not a guarantee, some competitors might find some small thing that violates its own patents.

Moreover, and this is a key point, someone who wanted to make a competitive product would need to get “around,” or avoid conflicting, with any of those 100 patents. That’s going to be hard.

OK, I just gave you a 10-minute review of patents. A real patent attorney spends 3 years in law school and several years as an associate to actually deal with patents.

I know about patents because I worked in research and development, but we always had lawyers who watched our backs. We’d develop some cool gizmo to make something work better, and one of our company’s annoyingly frank attorneys would tell us, “that violates patent 470012-12 from Company XYZ,” who is our largest competitor.

That would put our development at a full stop until and unless we could figure out a small or large change that avoided the competitive patent. Let’s just say this caused a lot of late-into-the-evening brainstorming sessions.

One time, when I was developing cardiovascular devices, our engineers invented a unique way to perform a cardiovascular procedure, and the underlying patent, we discovered, was owned by one of the Big Beverage companies.

That company licensed the patent to us for cheap (considering it was very important), because they simply made more money on sugared brown water than they would from a medical company. Actually, they were kind of wrong on that point, but we weren’t going to negotiate against ourselves.

And stuff like this happens 200 times a day with developing anything from an iPhone to a new vaccine. It’s never that simple.

The CDC vaccine patents

Let’s start right at the top. Yes, the CDC vaccine patents contain a large portfolio of intellectual property on various aspects of vaccines, because the CDC does a boatload of research on infectious disease, which leads to vaccines. Eventually, they invent something, maybe finding the exact antigen on a virus that induces an immune response, and patent attorneys at the CDC file a patent on that “invention.”

Patents protect the CDC from corporations or individuals who would rely upon CDC inventions, and then, attempt to patent it for themselves for profit. So, the CDC (or any federal science agency, like the NIH, US Geological Survey, or whomever) has a portfolio of patents it can license to anyone who wants to pay for them.

Now the CDC does not license the patents themselves. The patents are licensed to outside entities, such as pharmaceutical companies, by the National Institutes of Health Office of Technology Transfer (OTT), which is responsible for licensing all of the patents generated from the Department of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC.

Thus, even at this point, the CDC really isn’t responsible for selling the patents and receiving the royalties, but that’s probably not an important issue with regards to Ginger Taylor’s convoluted conspiracy theory.

So, in the immortal words of somebody, “follow the money.” We shall do that, but be prepared to be shocked and dismayed at what I found. And by “shocked and dismayed,” I really mean “yawned loudly.” As opposed to Ms. Taylor’s wide-eyed reporting of some nonexistent conspiracy, I actually looked up the numbers. Took a little work, but I got there.

The CDC lists out all of the technology it has available to be licensed – that’s nearly 100 patents, which have some reasonable link to vaccines or the vaccination process. Now, Ginger Taylor claims that there are 57 patents available from the CDC for vaccines. However, that ignores the process of licensing. Some patents, as I’ve mentioned above, don’t stand alone, and have little value. She went her “research” on these patents like a typical Google University student, pretending to know more than she really does.

Looking through the technology that the CDC has, none of it will give you the right to manufacture any vaccine just by itself, as we discussed above. I suppose I could license one of the CDC vaccine patents, open a manufacturing facility in his garage, and begin selling a Streptococcus A vaccine.

Unfortunately, I would also need literally dozens of other patents that would be needed to be licensed – from manufacturing technology to any unique ingredients, to just about everything else. At this point, I’d need to get some more gold bars to even begin manufacturing. And remember, even if I get all of those patents, the FDA still needs to approve my new Strep A vaccine.

You see, it’s more than that one patent from the CDC. It’s a huge process, and the I just doesn’t have the energy, money, or determination to bring out that vaccine.

But there’s more.

CDC vaccine patents and money

The OTT reported in FY2020 that they had earned royalties of about US$63.4 million across all of the licensed technology from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and CDC. Remember, CDC technology is only a tiny part of the overall NIH licensing activities. 

But here’s where it gets interesting, none of the top 20 licenses for vaccine-related technology in FY2018, the most recent reported numbers, came from the CDC. In other words, if the CDC was printing money from its vaccine-related patents, it’s not doing a very good job at it. 

Because of nondisclosure agreements, it is difficult to tease out the data of how much of that $63.4 million was associated with the CDC’s technology. But for the purpose of this exercise, let’s assume that the CDC got about US$5 million for all of its vaccine-related technology.

According to the rules of the Federal Government, almost all of the royalties must be plowed back into basic scientific research. And if you’re thinking, which I know the anti-vaccine fanatics will be, that the CDC will prostitute itself for $5 million, well that kind of ignores a basic bit of information.

The CDC budget request for discretionary spending for FY2020 is US$7.9 billion (pdf), so a royalty of $5 million is approximately 0.06% of the discretionary CDC budget. Since people usually attribute ethics to others that they attribute to themselves, maybe Ginger Taylor will sell her intellectual ethics for $5 million. For the CDC, this money probably would qualify as a rounding error in a nearly $8 billion budget.

However, what makes anyone think that the dedicated public servants at the CDC would sell their souls for $5 million? Because, right at the start, let’s remember that there are no financial gains for an individual employee of the CDC – any royalties are just for basic scientific research at the CDC to save human lives.

This is so frustrating. Ginger Taylor and Robert F Kennedy Jr want to convince us that the CDC pushes vaccines just to earn a measly $5 million dollars, basically a rounding error in the accounting for a huge federal agency like the CDC. I imagine all the labs at the CDC use $5 million in micropipette tips every year. And I’m not joking.

Ginger and RFK Jr have become so filled with hatred of vaccines, that they are beyond thinking rationally. They think everyone is unethical, except for themselves. Thus, we should not vaccinate children because they believe they know more than well-educated, well-trained, and incorruptible scientists.

They want us to believe that every CDC scientist sits in their diamond-encrusted office dreaming of ways to make another $1.25 from vaccines by pushing these “dangerous” vaccines on the American public. In their simple minds, they want to make it appear that vaccines serve no public good, so of course, the CDC wants to make money harming Americans.

Ginger wraps up her online diatribe with:

This brief look at current patents held by the CDC deserves an in-depth review to determine exactly what current financial relationships with vaccine makers now exist and  what the current impact those revenue streams are likely having on vaccine safety positions.  Furthermore, one must closely look at the financial relationships between the CDC and vaccine makers it is currently courting, to include the potential exploitation of new patents for financial gain. These are merely a few  lines of inquiry, among hundreds, needing to be examined and why the potential RFK commission on vaccine safety must be impaneled.

Well, I did. And she’s laughably off-base on her accusations. The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), whose “debates” are public records, never sit around trying to maximize the value of the patents, because the value isn’t that high. The ACIP recommended Gardasil, not because the CDC would get 0.1% more money to pay for those micropipette tips, but because Gardasil prevents HPV-related cancers and is extremely safe.

RFK Jr claims that the CDC sells vaccines

Robert F Kennedy Jr, not to be confused with his pro-vaccine family, makes a ridiculous claim that the CDC “sells $4.1 billion in vaccines annually.” I couldn’t figure out where he got this number, except out of the thin air. Or his digestive tract.

However, I think I know where he gets this number, and it shows just how low RFK Jr will go to create a strawman argument that makes the CDC look bad.

The CDC is responsible for the Vaccines for Children Program, which provides free CDC-recommended vaccines for all children under the age of 18 in the USA. This program is meant for children without healthcare insurance (who would otherwise receive free vaccines), children on Medicaid, and native Americans.

The CDC does sell these vaccines – they buy them, at a significant discount, directly from the pharmaceutical companies, who distribute them directly to clinics and healthcare agencies across the country and associated territories. They make no money on this program, and it is funded by the Federal Government at around $4 billion a year.

The Vaccines for Children Program has been an incredible success, saving hundreds of thousands of lives since the program was started in 1993.

Obviously, RFK Jr is so blind in his hatred of the CDC and vaccines, he misrepresents the Vaccines for Children Program as some profit-making venture of the CDC, when in fact, it’s one of the great social programs of the last 30 years.

Summary of CDC vaccine patents

I just don’t get anti-science people like Ginger Taylor and Robert F Kennedy Jr. They don’t understand that people working at the CDC do so mostly out of an obligation to humanity, something that’s far outside of their abilities to comprehend.

These CDC researchers are first responders to epidemics worldwide. They put themselves in harm’s way, not for another box of micropipette tips – no, they do it for altruism and concern for mankind. I wish Ginger Taylor and Robert F. Kennedy Jr would do the same – instead, they push fear, uncertainty, and doubt to put children at risk of dangerous and deadly diseases.

In case you want the TL;DR version, let’s review where Taylor and RFK Jr. are plainly wrong:

1. It’s almost impossible for one patent to give all the intellectual property to manufacture one vaccine. You need dozens of patents.
2. A patent does not give you the right to manufacture a vaccine.
3. The CDC’s patents bring in less than 0.07% of their budget. That does not qualify as a financial partnership with anyone, including Big Pharma.
4. The CDC is made up of dedicated public servants. If you’re going to denigrate them, bring evidence, Ms. Taylor. And it better be some good stuff, not your crackpot conspiracy theories.

Whatever money the CDC gets from vaccine patents is not used to line the pockets of the CDC with gold bars. It’s used to perform more research in more areas of diseases to prevent harm.

Maybe that damn micropipette tip will be used to discover a novel treatment for heart disease, or prevent Zika, or, if I could only hope, reduce gun-related deaths in this country. Ginger Taylor wants to see conspiracy theories where there are none.

But as the loquacious Orac said in his article about her,

It took all my self-control not to collapse on the floor in a gibbering, hysterically laughing mass upon reading Ginger’s comment. I was, however, unable to keep at least a little giggle from escaping.

I also laughed hysterically about Ginger’s latest conspiracy theory. But then I got mad – but I promise I did giggle at first.

Now, go buy a couple of boxes of micropipettes for the researchers at the CDC, so they don’t have to push vaccines and the CDC vaccine patents. Oh, wait. They’ll just use those things to help discover another vaccine to save human lives.

Notes

This article was originally published in January 2017. It has been revised to update and fix links, use FY2020 and 2021 statistics from the Office of Technology Transfer and CDC budgets, take down another myth from RFK Jr, and fix the formatting of the article.