Thu Oct 21, 2021 – 6:28 am EDT
Editor’s note: The details of Pfizer’s contracts could help to at least partly explain the current imposition of draconian COVID-19 vaccine mandates on the Dominican Republic as reported in recent articles.
(Children’s Health Defense) – Pfizer has used its position as a producer of one of the leading COVID-19 vaccines to “silence governments, throttle supply, shift risk, and maximize profits” through secret contracts with countries around the world, according to a Public Citizen report published Tuesday.
“Behind closed doors, Pfizer wields its power to extract a series of concerning concessions from governments,” the report’s author Zain Rizvi, law and policy researcher at Public Citizen’s Access to Medicines program, said in a statement. “The global community cannot allow pharmaceutical corporations to keep calling the shots.”
The new report begins by noting February reporting about accusations of Pfizer — an American pharmaceutical giant that developed its mRNA vaccine with the German firm BioNTech — “bullying” Latin American governments during contract negotiations for doses.
Public Citizen obtained unredacted term sheets, drafts or final agreements between Pfizer and Albania, Brazil, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, the European Commission and Peru. The consumer rights advocacy group also examined redacted contracts with Chile, the U.S., and the U.K.
Based on those contracts, the report identifies six tactics Pfizer is using to serve the company rather than public health in the midst of a deadly pandemic:
Pfizer reserves the right to silence governments
The Brazilian government complained earlier this year that the company insisted on “unfair and abusive” terms but ultimately accepted a contract that “waived sovereign immunity; imposed no penalties on Pfizer for late deliveries; agreed to resolve disputes under a secret private arbitration under the laws of New York; and broadly indemnified Pfizer for civil claims.”
Brazil also agreed to a nondisclosure provision similar to those found in contracts with the European Commission and the U.S. government.
Pfizer controls donations
Again using Brazil as an example, the report points out that the South American nation must first get a go-ahead from Pfizer to accept donations or buy its vaccines from others. The country is also barred from “donating, distributing, exporting, or otherwise transporting the vaccine outside Brazil without Pfizer’s permission.”
Pfizer secured an “IP waiver” for itself
Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla “has emerged as a strident defender of intellectual property in the pandemic,” the report says, noting his opposition to a proposal that members of the World Trade Organization who signed on to the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) waive IP protections for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments during the crisis.
“But, in several contracts, Pfizer seems to recognize the risk posed by intellectual property to vaccine development, manufacturing, and sale,” Public Citizen explains. “The contracts shift responsibility for any intellectual property infringement that Pfizer might commit to the government purchasers. As a result, under the contract, Pfizer can use anyone’s intellectual property it pleases — largely without consequence.”