Vaccine Policy: For Our Health or For Economics?

“Indemnifying vaccine makers from liability has been a common theme throughout this pandemic. It allows manufacturers to get their products on the market faster, but it’s also a troublesome thought that there are no legal incentives for these companies to create safe vaccines and really vet their product,” wrote Arjun Walia, a journalist at The Pulse & Collective Evolution.

Last week we wrote that towards the end of November South Africa had asked Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer to suspend delivery of Covid injections as it had enough in stock.

In September 2021 India announced that they would not buy Covid injections from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The main reason, Reuters reported, was because domestic output of “more affordable and easier-to-store vaccines has jumped.”

Walia’s article – which highlights that the Indian Government declined to meet Pfizer and Moderna’s requests for legal protection over any side-effects from the use of their injections – invites readers to reflect on two questions. Why are vaccines a liability-free product in so many countries? Why is compensation to those injured by vaccines paid by taxpayers?

Below we highlight a few ‘official’ statements – “Vaccine Policy is Economic Policy”. And conclude with a recent speech in the European Parliament – “Vaccine Policy is Health Policy”. We ask our readers, with no additional comments from us, to reflect on Walia’s questions and decide for yourselves what the aim of our governments’ “vaccine policies” are.

Vaccine Policy is Economic Policy

At the end of January 2021, the online trading platform IG reported: Moderna’s “share price is up nearly 60% since the start of 2021 [i.e. within one month]. This week alone, shares spiked up over 25% after the company said 30.4 million doses of its vaccine have been supplied to the US government. The company says it is aiming to ramp up production output to one billion doses this year.”

Earlier in January World Bank President David Malpass said: “Pfizer has been hesitant to go into some of the countries because of the liability problems, they don’t have a liability shield.”

Bloomberg: David Malpass, 6 January 2021

You can watch Malpass’ full Bloomberg interview HERE. The clip above starts at timestamp 3:03.

A few months later, the International Monetary Fund (“IMF”) calculated vaccines will add $9 trillion to the world economy until 2025. “This year, next year, vaccine policy is economic policy … without it we cannot turn the fate of the world economy around,” Kristalina Georgieva, Head of the IMF, said in April 2021.

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IMF Seminar: Debate on the Global Economy, Kristalina Georgieva, 8 April 2021 (start 10:19 mins)

Six months later, on 13 October, during a World Bank Group Press Conference Malpass said, “Our highest priority is to secure access to vaccines and speed up shots in arms. I chair the Multilateral Leaders Taskforce, which includes Kristalina [Georgieva, IMF Managing Director], Tedros [Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General], and Ngozi [Okonjo-Iweala, WTO Director General].”

On 26 November the World Health Organisation designated omicron a “variant of concern.”

On 30 November, at a Covid-19 press conference, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a target for the NHS to give booster Covid injections to all over-18s within two months. Speaking at the same news conference NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said they are looking at whether the 15-minute post-vaccination observation period can be scrapped to speed up vaccinations. She set out additional financial incentives for vaccinators.

The Pulse reported: “New JCVI advice on halving the gap between second doses and boosters means an additional 6.9m over-40s will be newly eligible for a booster, while the expansion of the programme to 18-39s has made more than 7m people in the age group eligible, Ms Pritchard added.”

Vaccine Policy is Health Policy

“On the floor of the European Parliament, German MEP Nicolaus Fest (AfD) demanded that instead of injecting more people, they examine the efficacy, side-effects, and deaths in connection with the vaccinations. Furthermore, he wants the pharmaceutical companies to be held liable,” wrote RAIR Foundation USA.

RAIR Foundation USA: MEP Demand Answers: ‘When Will Vaccine Deaths Be Counted’, 24 November (2 mins)

So, which is it? Vaccine policy is a health policy or vaccine policy is an economic policy? You decide.