FEW pharmaceutical companies can have been as reviled as Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca or for better reason. Readers of these pages will know that the damage they have done with their mRNA and RNA Covid-19 vaccines is incalculable. US reports in 2023 put the number of people injured at 26million. A study of 100million people in 2024 confirmed the risk. Last years People’s Vaccine Inquiry exposed how the models used by Big Pharma and government to create the illusion of benefit were based on a cheap statistical trick.
Yet despite this mendacious and disreputable behaviour, over this period Big Pharma profits have kept soaring. Though the AstraZeneca vaccine was binned the company has never been called to account for deaths and injury it inflicted. In the case of Moderna, its journey from clinical-stage biotech to commercial juggernaut has been directly aided by our very own government. We reported on the Conservatives’ ‘deal with the devil’ of Moderna back in January 2023 – a ten-year ‘partnership’ to produce up to 250million doses of mRNA vaccine in a purpose-built plant to start construction that year. Dubious vaccines to be inflicted on the trusting and unwitting UK populace paid for by their taxes. The Vaccine Task Force who engineered the deal failed to do their due diligence. Paula Jardine did. She reported on its murky past with regard to the questionable RSV vaccine here.
Now we hear from the Telegraph that the UK government’s favoured ‘vaccine partner’ is in deep trouble as well it should be: ‘Moderna could face suspension from Britain’s pharmaceutical trade body following a string of breaches of the regulatory code.
‘The Covid vaccine maker is due to be audited by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA) over “unacceptable” practices that brought discredit upon the industry.
‘If found to be lacking adequate compliance systems, Moderna could ultimately be suspended or expelled from the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (APBI).
‘It follows several code breaches, including representatives of the company offering children £1,500 and teddy bears to take part in Covid vaccine trials.
‘In a fresh ruling, which is expected to be published in the coming days, the company was also found to have misled regulators about when it first became aware of the financial incentives to children.
‘Moderna claimed it had taken action as soon as it was notified about the cash offer by the Health Research Agency in January 2024, but it has now emerged that senior executives were informed in August 2023 by the campaign group UsForThem, yet failed to take action.
‘Under the Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) regulations, it is prohibited for incentives or financial inducements to be given to children or their parents.
‘The PMCPA ruled the company had shown a lack of transparency that was “completely unacceptable” and brought discredit upon the industry.
‘A senior employee was also found to have co-authored three articles, including one with Nadhim Zahawi, the former vaccines minister, which promoted Moderna’s Covid vaccine without disclosing he worked for the company. He also sent promotional tweets from a personal account without revealing his role.’
As Molly Kingsley of UsForThem commented: ‘Many of the previous decisions against Moderna have shown how easily they have put profit before the health and safety of children.’
You can read the full article here.
What the Telegraph‘s report does not comment on – but we will – is what are the implications for the UK government’s close ties with Moderna if its ‘organisational culture, governance and internal framework are found not to be up to par’. This is hardly a company the UK should be so deeply in bed with.
Moderna has already been ordered to pay thousands of pounds for regulatory violations, including for using ‘off-label’ data to promote the Spikevax vaccine at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases in April 2022.
Will vaccine-loving, social-control Labour be as blind to its infractions and corrupt practices as the Conservatives were? Most probably.
