It’s not a donation if we paid for it. Gilead says it will “give away” one million doses of remdesivir, one of the only treatments that has been shown to significantly improve outcomes in severe cases of COVID-19. But the fact is that Gilead has received tens of millions of public dollars from the government to develop a medication that will generate billions in private profit for its investors.

From one public health crisis to another, Gilead continues to use our money to fund research for necessary interventions, then prices those same treatments completely out of our reach. With politicians and corporations making decisions that mean that Black people are disproportionately contracting and dying from coronavirus, and that low-income Black and Latinx workers are on the frontlines of essential work, unable to stay home, any attempt to keep this medication out of our reach is an all-out attack on our community. That’s why we demand that Congress ensure that Gilead makes remdesivir free for all.

Here is the Petition:

To Representatives,

Because politicians, leaders and the healthcare system are denying us the care and attention they give to others, Black people are one of the groups most likely to die of COVID-19. And in a moment when roughly 30 million people have filed for unemployment, and a full third of Americans have been unable to pay their rent, Gilead’s leadership has made the deliberate and absurd choice to charge $2,340 for life-saving medication in the middle of a pandemic. Without the guarantee that they will make this treatment free, Gilead’s “donations” of remdesivir are simply a PR stunt that allows them to keep profiting from our communities’ suffering.

Multi-billion dollar companies like Gilead that have access to medication that can save lives during a public health emergency have the resources and the responsibility to make them as widely available as possible. That’s why we’re calling on you to ensure Gilead makes this publicly-funded COVID-19 treatment free for all.