{"id":276760,"date":"2023-09-01T22:10:29","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T20:10:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=276760"},"modified":"2023-09-01T22:10:32","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T20:10:32","slug":"the-scandalous-eu-contract-with-pfizer-biontech-has-been-online-for-two-years-why-has-nobody-seen-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=276760","title":{"rendered":"The Scandalous EU Contract with Pfizer-BioNTech Has Been Online For Two Years. Why Has Nobody Seen It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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From The Daily Sceptic<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

BY\u00a0ROBERT KOGON<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A\u00a0recent court order<\/a>\u00a0requiring disclosure of the South African COVID-19 vaccine procurement contracts has caused a stir in social media and raised hopes that some of the secret clauses offering special protection to manufacturers might finally be revealed. The Romanian Member of the European Parliament Cristian Terhes, who has long criticised Ursula von der Leyen and the EU Commission for publishing heavily redacted versions of the EU\u2019s own procurement contracts, hailed the ruling\u00a0in a tweet<\/a>\u00a0as a \u201chuge win for transparency and accountability\u201d, pointing, in particular, to the inclusion of the all-important \u2018Pfizer\u2019 contract among the documents to be released.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But why the excitement? The EU\u2019s own procurement contract or Advanced Purchase Agreement (APA) with the consortium of Pfizer and the German company BioNTech has been available online in unredacted form for well over two years now: since, more precisely, April 2021, just shortly after vaccine rollout. It does indeed contain hair-raising clauses, which would undoubtedly have provoked massive opposition and \u2018vaccine hesitancy\u2019 had they been more widely known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider, for instance, the following clause from Article 1, paragraph 4, of the Vaccine Order Form which is appended to the APA: \u201cThe Participating Member State further acknowledges that the long-term effects and efficacy of the Vaccine are not currently known and that there may be adverse effects of the Vaccine that are not currently known.\u201d (See full paragraph below.) How many Europeans would have rushed to take the vaccine or even consented to take it if they had known that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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But they did not know it. For here is what the same paragraph looks like in the redacted version of the APA posted by the European Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This \u2018acknowledgement\u2019 clause in the order form \u2013 acknowledgement, in effect, that the manufacturers knew neither if the vaccine was safe nor if it was effective, at any rate in the long-term \u2013 is in addition to the clauses which already provide the manufacturers extremely wide-reaching indemnification in the section on indemnification of the contract proper. See, for instance, the excerpt from Article I.12.1 below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The \u2018contractor\u2019, as specified on the first page of the APA, refers to Pfizer and BioNTech collectively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is how the same passage looks in the redacted version of the contract posted by the European Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Here is what the full page looks like.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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And the following page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In fact, apart from the first sentence, the entire section on indemnification, covering nearly three full pages of text has been redacted in the version of the APA posted by the Commission (see pages 24-26<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is these extensive redactions which have been the focus of Cristian Terhes and other vaccine-critical members of the European Parliament. Taking Ursula von der Leyen and the Commission to task for their lack of transparency, Terhes has made a regular practice of theatrically holding up blacked-out pages of the contract in plenary sessions. (See\u00a0here<\/a>, for instance, from October 2022.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ursula @vonderleyen<\/a> must resign, since her actions are criminally investigated by @EUProsecutor<\/a>.

She signed contracts to purchase 4.6 billion COVID vaccine doses worth \u20ac71, contracts that are still not fully released to the public and MEPs. #UrsulaMustResign<\/a> #EUCorruption<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/CTHISWoFhj<\/a><\/p>— Cristian Terhes MEP (@CristianTerhes) October 18, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote>