{"id":179951,"date":"2021-03-01T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=179951"},"modified":"2021-02-24T06:47:35","modified_gmt":"2021-02-24T06:47:35","slug":"held-to-ransom-pfizer-demands-governments-gamble-with-state-assets-to-secure-vaccine-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2021\/03\/held-to-ransom-pfizer-demands-governments-gamble-with-state-assets-to-secure-vaccine-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Held to Ransom\u2019: Pfizer Demands Governments Gamble with State Assets to Secure Vaccine Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Bureau of Investigative Journalism<\/p><\/div>\n

23 Feb 2021 – <\/em>Pfizer has been accused of \u201cbullying\u201d Latin American governments in Covid vaccine negotiations and 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, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism can reveal.<\/p>\n

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In the case of one country, demands made by the pharmaceutical giant led to a three-month delay in a vaccine deal being agreed. For Argentina and Brazil, no national deals were agreed at all. Any hold-up in countries receiving vaccines means more people contracting Covid-19 and potentially dying.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s negotiators demanded additional indemnity against any civil claims citizens might file if they experienced adverse effects after being inoculated. In Argentina and Brazil, Pfizer asked for sovereign assets to be put up as collateral for any future legal costs.<\/p>\n

One official who was present in the unnamed country\u2019s negotiations described Pfizer\u2019s demands as \u201chigh-level bullying\u201d and said the government felt like it was being \u201cheld to ransom\u201d in order to access life-saving vaccines.<\/p>\n

Campaigners are already warning of a \u201cvaccine apartheid\u201d<\/a> in which rich Western countries may be inoculated years before poorer regions. Now, legal experts have raised concerns that Pfizer\u2019s demands amount to an abuse of power.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Terms<\/em><\/h4>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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Indemnity <\/strong>When a government agrees to cover any compensation costs that may arise from citizens bringing civil cases relating to serious adverse effects after a vaccine. <\/em><\/p>\n

Additional indemnity <\/strong>When a government agrees to indemnify a company (see above) and also covers the potential costs of civil cases brought as a result of the company\u2019s own acts of negligence, fraud or malice. These include if the company interrupted the cold chain for a vaccine or delivered the wrong vaccine.<\/em><\/p>\n

Adverse effect <\/strong>An untoward medical occurrence that happens as a result of receiving a vaccine or medicine. Can lead to injury, disability or death.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cPharmaceutical companies shouldn’t be using their power to limit life-saving vaccines in low- and middle-income countries,\u201d said Professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health Organization\u2019s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law. \u201c[This] seems to be exactly what they’re doing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Protection against liability shouldn\u2019t be used as \u201cthe sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of desperate countries with a desperate population,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Pfizer has been in talks with more than 100 countries and supranational organisations, 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.<\/p>\n

Pfizer told the Bureau: \u201cGlobally, we have also 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. We are committed to supporting efforts aimed at providing developing countries with the same access to vaccines as the rest of the world.\u201d It declined to comment on ongoing private negotiations.<\/p>\n

Most governments are offering indemnity \u2013 exemption from legal liability \u2013 to the vaccine manufacturers they are buying from. This means that a citizen who suffers an adverse effect 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.<\/p>\n

This is fairly typical for vaccines administered in a pandemic. In many cases adverse effects 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<\/a>). Because manufacturers have developed vaccines quickly and because they protect everyone in society, governments often agree to cover the cost of compensation.<\/p>\n

However, the government officials from Argentina and the unnamed country who spoke to the Bureau felt Pfizer’s demands went beyond those of other vaccine companies, and beyond those of Covax, an organisation created to ensure low-income countries can access vaccines, which is also requiring its members 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\u2019 liabilities can be waived.<\/p>\n

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\u2018An extreme demand\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Pfizer asked for 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 \u2013 say, if Pfizer sent the wrong vaccine or made errors during manufacturing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome liability protection is warranted, but certainly not for fraud, gross negligence, mismanagement, failure to follow good manufacturing practices,\u201d said Gostin. \u201cCompanies have no right to ask for indemnity for these things.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Dr Mark Eccleston-Turner, a lecturer in global health law at Keele University, 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\u2019s partner BioNTech was given $445m by the German government to develop a vaccine and the US government agreed a deal in July to pre-order 100m doses for nearly $2bn, before the vaccine had even entered phase three trials. Pfizer expects to make<\/a> sales of $15bn worth of vaccines in 2021.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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