This story has floated around for nearly 2 weeks but hasn’t made a peep in any major news outlets.
So, I wanted to bring to your attention just how vicious these COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers are behaving to protect their RECORD profits.
If you’re not already aware, pharmaceutical companies can’t be sued in the United States for damages due to vaccines.
They’re non-liable, and you won’t get a penny if the vaccine causes you harm:
Reported by @CNBC https://t.co/JVTJde9JRx
— Dr Teck Khong (@DrTeckKhong) March 2, 2021
And in order to achieve the same legal immunity around the world, they’re resorting to mafia tactics to intimidate foreign governments.
This report highlights Pfizer and their negotiation efforts in Latin America.
Pfizer was accused of “high-level” bullying and made outrageous demands to secure protection from any future legal costs relating to COVID-19 vaccine damages.
They even wanted to hold collateral from some countries, such as bank reserves, embassy buildings, and military bases.
https://twitter.com/DeannaSpingola/status/1368940893047300104
Pfizer knows it holds the key solutions to the pandemic so why not to bully countries into changing legislation and demand to be compensated for the cost of any future civil lawsuits? Some countries had to accept that to receive the Covid-19 vaccinehttps://t.co/0jaEkpNCPn
— Valesca L. (@VaLescaL) March 4, 2021
Pfizer has demanded sovereign assets as collateral and wanted Argentina to put its bank reserves, military bases and embassy buildings as security against any future claims against them for the covid vaccine https://t.co/5eceNU2EPO
— banthebbc 𝕏 (@banthebbc) March 2, 2021
I thought their precious mRNA experimental vaccine was supposed to be super effective?
If it’s so safe, then why would Pfizer resort to shaking down foreign governments like the mafia for protection against future lawsuits?
Well, all you have to do is follow the money trail.
That’s a large part of what this is all about.
Companies like Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson are going to earn profit levels they’ve never imagined this year.
And it’s all thanks to the COVID-19 vaccine.
How many billions in profits is too much"
"Pfizer’s profit margin on vaccine➡️ 60%-80%"
Pfizer and Moderna control the manufacturing of COVID vaccines, even tho taxpayers paid billions of dollars for the basic research and development of the technology"https://t.co/VUoZdC0Puo
— ⏳Towhee 🌏☮️ (@amborin) January 24, 2021
Pfizer expects $15 billion in revenue this year from the Covid-19 vaccine it developed with BioNTech, a sign of returns to come from the industry’s pandemic response https://t.co/3OnnyvzlA9
— Bloomberg (@business) February 2, 2021
That’s a lot of profits they’re trying to protect.
And they use whatever means necessary to stuff their wallets, even if it causes severe side effects or death in thousands of vaccine recipients.
Not to mention, the unknown long-term side effects.
STAT reported on the story:
Pfizer has been accused of “bullying” Latin American governments during negotiations to acquire its Covid-19 vaccine, and the company has asked some countries to put up sovereign assets, such as embassy buildings and military bases, as a guarantee against the cost of any future legal cases, according to an investigation by the U.K.-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
In the case of one Latin American country, demands made by the pharmaceutical giant led to a three-month delay in a vaccine deal being reached. For Argentina and Brazil, no national deals were agreed to at all with Pfizer. Any hold-up in countries receiving vaccines can lead to more people contracting Covid-19 and potentially dying.
Officials from Argentina and the other Latin American country, which cannot be named as it has signed a confidentiality agreement with Pfizer, said the company’s negotiators demanded more than the usual indemnity against civil claims filed by citizens who suffer serious adverse events after being inoculated. They said Pfizer also insisted the governments cover the potential costs of civil cases brought as a result of Pfizer’s own acts of negligence, fraud, or malice. In Argentina and Brazil, Pfizer asked for sovereign assets to be put up as collateral for any future legal costs.
One government health official who was present in the unnamed country’s negotiations described Pfizer’s demands as “high-level bullying” and said the government felt like it was being “held to ransom” in order to access lifesaving vaccines.
Campaigners are already warning of a “vaccine apartheid” in which rich Western countries may be inoculated years before lower-income regions. Now, legal experts have raised concerns that Pfizer’s demands amount to an abuse of power.
“Pharmaceutical companies shouldn’t be using their power to limit lifesaving vaccines in low- and middle-income countries,” said Lawrence Gostin, a law professor at Georgetown University and director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. “[This] seems to be exactly what they’re doing.”
Protection against liability shouldn’t be used as “the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of desperate countries with a desperate population,” he added.
Pfizer, which partnered with BioNTech, a German biotech, to make the vaccine, has been in talks with more than 100 countries and international bodies, and has supply agreements with nine countries in Latin America and the Caribbean: Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. The terms of those deals are unknown.
Pfizer declined to comment on the allegations about its demands in negotiations, citing “ongoing negotiations which are private and confidential.”
The company told the Bureau in a statement: “Pfizer and BioNTech are firmly committed to working with governments and other relevant stakeholders to ensure equitable and affordable access to our COVID-19 vaccine for people around the world.” The company said that in addition to the nine Latin American countries with which it has struck supply agreements, it has “allocated doses to low- and lower-middle-income countries at a not-for-profit price, including an advance purchase agreement with COVAX to provide up to 40 million doses in 2021.” COVAX is a global initiative to pool purchasing power and ensure vaccine access for low-income countries. “We are committed to supporting efforts aimed at providing developing countries with the same access to vaccines as the rest of the world,” Pfizer said.
Most governments are offering indemnity — exemption from legal liability — to the vaccine manufacturers they are buying from. This means that a citizen who suffers an adverse event after being vaccinated can file a claim against the manufacturer and, if successful, the government would pay the compensation. In some countries people can also apply for compensation through specific structures without going to court.
This is fairly typical for vaccines administered in a pandemic. In many cases, adverse events are so rare that they do not show up in clinical trials and only become apparent once hundreds of thousands of people have received the vaccine (a 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine, for example, was eventually linked to narcolepsy). Because manufacturers have developed vaccines quickly and because they protect everyone in society, governments often agree to cover the cost of compensation.
However, the government officials from Argentina and the unnamed country who spoke to the Bureau said Pfizer’s demands went beyond those of other vaccine companies, and beyond those of COVAX, which is also requiring its member countries to indemnify manufacturers. This presents an additional burden for some countries because it means having to hire specialist lawyers, and sometimes pass complex new legislation, so manufacturers’ liabilities can be waived.
‘An extreme demand’
Pfizer asked for an additional indemnity from civil cases, meaning that the company would not be held liable for rare adverse effects or for its own acts of negligence, fraud or malice. This includes those linked to company practices — say, if Pfizer sent the wrong vaccine or made errors during manufacturing.
“Some liability protection is warranted, but certainly not for fraud, gross negligence, mismanagement, failure to follow good manufacturing practices,” said Gostin. “Companies have no right to ask for indemnity for these things.”
Mark Eccleston-Turner, a lecturer in global health law at Keele University in England, said Pfizer and other manufacturers have received government funding to research and develop the vaccines and are now pushing the potential costs of adverse effects back on to governments, including those in low- and middle-income countries. (Pfizer’s partner, BioNTech, was given $445 million by the German government to develop a vaccine and the U.S. government agreed in July to preorder 100 million doses for nearly $2 billion, before the vaccine had even entered Phase 3 trials. Pfizer expects to make sales of $15 billion worth of vaccines in 2021.)
In Eccleston-Turner’s opinion, it looks like Pfizer “is trying to eke out as much profit and minimize its risk at every juncture with this vaccine development then this vaccine rollout. Now, the vaccine development has been heavily subsidized already. So there’s very minimal risk for the manufacturer involved there.”
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