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Pfizer COVID-19 Jab Contract Released Through Court Order

Governments and pharmaceutical manufacturers remain desperate to hide the agreements made for the experimental COVID-19 injections.

After a lengthy court battle, the Health Justice Initiative (HJI), a South African NGO campaigning against public health inequality, forced the South African government to release its COVID-19 jab agreements with pharmaceutical companies.

HJI writes:

The Health Justice Initiative v The Minister of Health and Information Officer, Department of Health
On 22 February 2022 in Gauteng, South Africa, the HJI launched legal proceedings for the disclosure of all Covid-19 vaccine contracts and any applicable agreements with relevant companies and entities.

This follows an access to information request to the National Department of Health (NDoH) which was refused.

This case was heard by Millar J in the Pretoria High Court on Tuesday, 25 July 2023.

On 17 August 2023, the Pretoria High Court ruled in our favour in our bid to compel the National Department of Health to provide access to the COVID-19 vaccine procurement contracts. The Court ordered (per Millar J) that all COVID-19 vaccine contracts must be made public, and the costs of the case were awarded in our favour.

HJI provided access to the High Court judgement, their press release on the judgement, all other court papers, and fact-sheets about the case on its website.

Through the court order, HJI obtained COVID-19 jab agreements from the South African government with Pfizer, COVAX Facility (Gavi Alliance), Janssen Pharmaceutica, and the Serum Institute of India.

Al Jazeera, which reported on the contracts, said the pharmaceutical manufacturers “bullied” South Africa by overcharging for the experimental COVID-19 shots.

“J&J, Pfizer charged South Africa between 15 and 33 percent more for COVID vaccine doses, contracts reveal,” Al Jazeera wrote.

Al Jazeera reports:

Big pharmaceutical companies “bullied” South Africa into signing unfair agreements that forced the country to overpay for COVID-19 vaccines compared with Western nations, according to a nonprofit that lobbied for the details to be released.

The details were revealed on Tuesday in an analysis by the Health Justice Initiative (HJI), a South African NGO campaigning against public health inequality after it won a court bid last month to get the government to release its contracts.

During the height of the pandemic, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) charged South Africa 15 percent more per dose of its COVID vaccine than it charged the European Union, while Pfizer-BioNTech charged South Africa nearly 33 percent more than it reportedly charged the African Union, according to vaccine contracts between the pharmaceutical companies and the government.

“In simple terms, Big Pharma bullied South Africa into these conditions,” HJI director Fatima Hassan told Al Jazeera. “Amid a deadly pandemic, when scarce vaccines were only going to the richest countries, the companies exploited our desperation.”

“Put simply, pharmaceutical companies held us to ransom,” a HJI press release stressed.

South Africa was liable for payments of at least $734m, HJI said, including advance payments of almost $95m, with no guarantees of timely delivery.

“We hope that more countries will publish their contracts with Big Pharma, so that the world can see how the industry really conducts business,” Hassan told Al Jazeera.

After reviewing the Pfizer COVID-19 jab agreement, there’s one section that stands out.

The aforementioned section is the “Purchaser Acknowledgement.”

It reads: Purchaser acknowledges that the Vaccine and materials related to the Vaccine, and their components and constituent materials are being rapidly developed due to the emergency circumstances of the COVID-19 pandemic and will continue to be studied after provision of the Vaccine to Purchaser under this Agreement. Purchaser 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. Further, to the extent applicable, Purchaser acknowledges that the Product shall not be serialized. 

Pfizer acknowledged in its agreement the long-term effects and efficacy of its product was “not currently known.”

The South African government agreed to the contract.

“I wasn’t on the #Nuremberg2 initially. I am now. Trials. For all of them,” Viva Frei, a lawyer-turned-podcaster, wrote.

Image

“And once again, Pfizer avoided serialization of the product, making it difficult to track fraudulent doses/batches (aka saline or worse) and also presumably made it difficult to track bad lots,” Lion Advocacy noted.

From the Pfizer ‘Manufacturing and Supply Agreement’ with South Africa:

Access all the COVID-19 jab agreements with the South African government at the Health Justice Initiative.


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