Coronavirus: report shows abusive requests …

A brief from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), a London-based non-profit news organization, in collaboration with Ojo Público, a Lima-based media outlet, he exposed the strong demands that the American pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has placed on Latin American countries.

According to the survey, the company asked some countries to put their sovereign assets, such as embassy buildings, military bases and central bank reserves, as collateral against the cost of future legal proceedings.

The study shows a three-month delay in the agreement to purchase this vaccine in one of the countries in the region, while in the case of Argentina Yes Brazil No agreement was reached. In the case of PeruPfizer asked to include clauses reducing the company’s liability for possible negative effects during the negotiation process.

The now former Minister of Health of the Nation, Ginés González García, had already warned against this situation on several occasions. At the end of December, he declared: “We don’t understand why Pfizer has so many demands on immunity and prevention, it’s like they don’t trust the vaccine.” Despite the government’s constant attempts to Alberto Fernandez, the company did not want to accept the proposals of the Argentine administration and no agreement was reached.

“We offered to pay millions of doses in advance, we accepted this international insurance, but the last request was extraordinary: Pfizer demanded that Argentina’s sovereign assets also be part of the legal backing.”, confessed an Argentinian official to the Bureau.

The published report reveals that officials from Argentina and another Latin American country explained that the company’s negotiators They demanded additional compensation against any civil lawsuits citizens could file if they suffered any adverse effects after being vaccinated. In the case of Argentina and Brazil, sovereign assets had to be placed as collateral to cover possible future legal costs.

In Peru, it was not only claimed to include clauses exonerating the pharmaceutical company from liability for possible adverse effects of the vaccine, but also from the delay in the delivery of the batches, as well as to implement all the legal regulations necessary to comply with the obligations. against the supplier against future lawsuits and indemnities

The foreign ministry of this country considered these requests as “extreme” and very different from those of other developers of the coronavirus vaccine. In the same vein, other testimonials speak of Pfizer orders like “high level intimidation” and a kind of “blackmail” to get access to vaccines.

When it comes to requirements for other vaccines, officials from the Argentine government and the country who requested not to be mentioned in the investigation indicated that they believe Pfizer’s demands go beyond other manufacturers and beyond the terms of Covax, an organization created to ensure that low-income countries have access to vaccines.

Lawrence gostin, director of the World Health Organization’s Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, said “Pharmaceutical companies should not use their power to limit life-saving vaccines in low- and middle-income countries”, while stating that “that appears to be exactly what they are doing” in reference to Pfizer.

The pharmaceutical company is in talks with more than 100 countries and supranational organizations and has concluded 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 these agreements are unknown.

A word from Pfizer

The report claims that Pfizer has promoted “a additional indemnity against civil lawsuits, which means that the company would not be liable for the rare side effects caused by its vaccine, or for its own acts of negligence, fraud or malice. “ This includes those related to company practices, such as whether Pfizer shipped the wrong vaccine or made manufacturing errors. “

The doctor. Mark Eccleston-Turner, The professor of global health law at Keele University, said Pfizer and other manufacturers had received government funding for vaccine research and development, warning that “it is trying to get the most out of it. ‘benefits and minimize its risk in each critical situation with the development of this vaccine and then with its release. “

Faced with the allegations, the Bureau contacted the pharmaceutical company, which declined to discuss the ongoing private negotiations, but said that “around the world they have assigned doses to low- and middle-income countries to a profitless pricing, including an early purchase agreement with Covax to deliver up to 40 million doses in 2021. ”

“We are committed to supporting efforts to provide developing countries with the same access to vaccines as the rest of the world,” they added.