Pfizer is playing hardball with third-world LATAM countries -- they are not going to take civil liability for providing their COVID vaccine to these countries who regularly attempt to extract liability money.
‘Held to ransom’: Pfizer plays hardball in Covid-19 vaccine negotiations with Latin American countries
https://www.statnews.com/2021/02/23...ovid19-vaccine-negotiations-in-latin-america/
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.
