Business secrets, state secrets

Millions and millions of doses of Covid vaccine were destroyed in October alone, in France. And since vaccination began, hundreds of millions of doses have likely been thrown away around the world. A waste essentially of the rich countries, which bought vaccines in mass and of which a good part expires before having been able to be used. States, including France, argue that this waste is in fact only the cost of insurance to be paid to be certain of not missing out. But, so that these countries “do not miss”, others could not vaccinate their population.

Behind this scandal, there is also the question of the negotiations carried out by the States and the European Commission with the Big Pharma producers of the vaccines and the conditions under which the trade agreements were ratified. However, all of this – the schedule of deliveries, their volumes and their prices, but also the conditions of use of these vaccines – is covered by business secrecy. On arrival, one certainty: the big winners are the private laboratories. On the scale of the European Union, the sums of public money poured into the laboratories are pharaonic. At the same time, public health systems and hospitals are collapsing due to lack of resources. Thousands of health professionals, underpaid with extended hours, are bowing out. The icing on the cake, it is not these billionaire laboratories that invented the technologies used in vaccines but all the research laboratories, largely financed by public money. Including the most innovative such as that based on messenger RNA. But by refusing to lift the vaccine patents, the intellectual property has been transferred to the laboratories…

At a time when the legitimate debate on the « superprofits » of the oil companies is needed, starting with those of Total, it is time to open the debate on the « superprofits » made over the past two years by the pharmaceutical industry. And why not, increase the demand to get the health and medicine sector out of the commercial sphere.