For readers of Bad Blood and Empire of Pain an authoritative look at monopoly medicine from the dawn of patents through the race for COVID19 vaccines and how the privatization of public science has prioritized profits over people Owning the Sun tells the story of one of the most contentious fights in human history the legal right to produce lifesaving medicines. Medical science began as a discipline geared toward the betterment of all human life but the merging of research with intellectual property and the rise of the pharmaceutical industry warped and eventually undermined its ethical foundations. Since World War II federally funded research has facilitated most major medical breakthroughs yet these drugs are often wholly controlled by pricegouging corporations with growing international ambitions. Why does the U.S. government fund the development of medical science in the name of the public only to relinquish exclusive rights to drug companies and how does such a system impoverish us weaken our responses to crises and as in the cases of AIDS and COVID19 put the world at risk Outlining how generations of public health and science advocates have attempted to hold the line against Big Pharma and their allies in government Alexander Zaitchiks firstofitskind history documents the rise of privatized medicine in the United States and its subsequent globalization. From the controversial arrival of patentwielding German drug firms in the late nineteenth century to presentday coordination between industry and philanthropic organizationsincluding the influential Bill ampamp Melinda Gates Foundationthat stymie international efforts to vaccinate the world against COVID19 Owning the Sun tells one of the most important and least understood histories of our time. show more