A senior executive from a Big Pharma company manufacturing 2 billion doses of a COVID-19 vaccine says they have been granted immunity from legal action in most countries if the vaccine leads to damaging side effects.
The executive from AstraZeneca, Britain’s second-largest drugmaker, told Reuters:
“This is a unique situation where we as a company simply cannot take the risk if in … four years the vaccine is showing side effects,” said Ruud Dobber, a senior executive at AstraZeneca.
“In the contracts we have in place, we are asking for indemnification. For most countries, it is acceptable to take that risk on their shoulders because it is in their national interest,” said Dobber, adding that Astra and regulators were making safety and tolerability a top priority.
AstraZeneca has pledged to supply a total of more than 2 billion doses in agreements with the United States, Britain and European countries, among other nations and organizations.
ZeroHedge report: AstraZeneca is one of the 25 pharmaceutical companies across the world, testing experimental drugs that could be used to combat the deadly virus. And, of course, if testing yields positive results, AstraZeneca could manufacture billions of doses, with no legal recourse if side effects are seen.
European officials told Reuters that product liability was a significant discussion to secure new vaccine drugs from Pfizer, Sanofi, and Johnson & Johnson.
As for the US, when it comes to the legal framework around vaccines, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) already has a law called the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, which provides immunity to vaccine companies if something goes wrong.
With AstraZeneca, and many US big pharma companies rushing COVID-19 vaccines to market with governments granting them immunity if the vaccine has side effects, all suggest corporate elites and government regulators have very little faith in these drugs.
