AstraZeneca to be exempt from Covid vaccine liability claims in most countries

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/international-business/article-astrazeneca-to-be-exempt-from-coronavirus-vaccine-liability-claims-in/

by AndrewBissell • 6 years ago

54 91 6 years ago

theglobeandmail.com

andreareina3• 6 years ago

AstraZeneca, Britain’s second-largest drugmaker, has pledged to supply a total of more than 2 billion doses at no profit in agreements with the United States, Britain and European countries, among other nations and organisations.

Not unreasonable.

dehrmann• 6 years ago

This actually seems fair. If they were held liable for anything less than gross negligence, we'd have the vaccine in 2025.

Moru• 6 years ago

Isn't this standard practice with any vaccine?

bobthebuilders• 6 years ago

Yup. But given that all the government's want to push this out like it's code on a Friday night, sacrifices were made.

RobertRoberts10• 6 years ago

This is totally insane.

Imagine if a company did this with air bags, guns for the army, tires or brakes for cars... Or any kind of food for people?

Just a little considerations for the ramifications of shoving this through out panic instead of well founded science shows what horrific tragedy this could cause with no repercussions for this company what so ever.

No profit??

Look up Hollywood accounting to show how the "for no profit" can mean something other than what you think it means.

sudeepj3• 6 years ago

In this case it is not. This is essentially a tradeoff.

The covid vaccine lifecycle has been way more short than other vaccines. Naturally the probability of some going wrong is higher.

The scientists, countries and the entire world is taking a calculated risk. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

RobertRoberts10• 6 years ago

Who would support a vaccine that does more damage than good?

Its _not_ an unlikely scenario at all.

Anti-science decisions should not be made based on irrational panic.

deanclatworthy• 6 years ago

Then why not adjust the liability somewhat proportionally rather than eliminate it.

AndrewBissell9• 6 years ago

So far 1.5M have died from COVID worldwide. Let's say that without a vaccine that number could be expected to grow to 10M or 20M. To prevent that outcome, we're talking about giving vaccines to billions of people, most of whom are at very little risk from the virus, which use previously-unknown mechanisms to induce immunity, and whose long-term effects are completely unknown. It seems to me like there's not really serious calculation being applied to the risks of the latter course. It's just "stop COVID at all costs."

partiallypro2• 6 years ago

Even if they do profit some...it's still worth it. The world is losing trillions of dollars and everyone's life is worse off. Seems totally acceptable for people to make a profit off ending that cycle.

RobertRoberts10• 6 years ago

Are you justifying mass deception of potentially the entire planet?

tinus_hn• 6 years ago

Those darn doctors and hospitals, profiting (or earning a living) off the pandemic!

gnopgnip• 6 years ago

The company is exempt, and the government has a fund to cover any injuries that are caused. Without a program like this only the largest pharamacutical companies would work on new vaccines, and overall there would be much less innovation

ComputerGuru• 6 years ago

Without a program like this only the largest pharamacutical companies would work on new vaccines

AstraZeneca easily falls into said category.

shureluck• 6 years ago

Agreed, I am working in medical right now and I smell this is not good at all.

andreareina3• 6 years ago

Harder to pull of Hollywood accounting when the buyer can say such-and-such expenses don't count.

To back its claim to forgo profits from the $1.2 billion collaboration in the United States, Astra has even granted the government access to financial accounts related to the venture, according to Dobber.
“There are very clear milestones before they are going to pay. Because we made the promise to manufacture the vaccine at no profit, auditors of the U.S. administration will get free access to our accounting books,” he said.

RobertRoberts10• 6 years ago

Basic accounting.

All they have to do is give everyone on the board millions in raises and the company "made no profit".

Don't be so gullible, it's _trivial_ to hide or remove profits without affecting income.

partiallypro2• 6 years ago

Without waiving liability it makes it difficult for companies to ever develop vaccines they can distribute. That's why the US passed the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act in the 80s

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Inj...

RobertRoberts10• 6 years ago

No other medicine requires this protection.

mistermann• 6 years ago

"...makes it difficult for companies to ever develop vaccines they can distribute" seems like a bit of a stretch, at least based on the evidence provided on Wikipedia. Surely the companies find having no liability makes things much easier though.

swang• 6 years ago

Mentioned in the article, AstraZeneca is already covered under PREPA in the US

PREPA removes the right to a jury trial for persons injured by a covered vaccine, unless a plaintiff can provide clear evidence of willful misconduct that resulted in death or serious physical injury. The act instructs the HHS secretary to write regulations "that further restrict the scope of actions or omissions by a covered person" that constitute willful misconduct.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Readiness_and_Emergency...

RobertRoberts10• 6 years ago

Why isn't it publicly available knowledge about who won damages against vaccine makers like every other court case?

The motives behind this protection are hidden.

olliej3• 6 years ago

They really aren’t - if they’re open to liability claims from a vaccine they developed in months, vs the usual decade+ timeframe there is no reason for them to distribute the vaccine. If anything it actively compels delaying so that they can get a better idea of the risk.

Whether or not you think the trade off is worth it is reasonable.

Spouting nonsense about “hidden” reasons is conspiracy theory nonsense.

dna_polymerase• 6 years ago

Do people really insist on AstraZeneca (or any other company) to provide a vaccine in record time at no profit and risking their whole operation on top of that?

Usually I'm in the more liability for everyone camp, but in this case it is obvious that this makes no sense.

gyzmau6• 6 years ago

I would argue, that the urgency shouldn't be a reason to rush out a new (not new in development but never commercialized) way to make vaccine never tested at big scale. Especially if we can make vaccine the "traditional"(Inactivated virus) way which we can.

xiphias22• 6 years ago

There were lots lf problems with the testing, so now it looks like the FDA wants to retry Phase 3. The results already look underwhelming for old people though. I myself will go for an mRNA vaccine.

ornornor4• 6 years ago

That’s what really bothers me with this vaccine. I’m absolutely pro vaccine and I have all my vaccines up to date.

But they’re vaccines that have been around for decades and for which we understand the side and long term effects pretty well.

I don’t feel very comfortable getting an injection developed in such a short time, for which we don’t really know the long term effects, using a completely new way of immunizing (I don’t think there are any other mRNA vaccines in use?)... and apparently the vaccine maker isn’t comfortable either if they’re looking for total liability exemption.

AndrewBissell9• 6 years ago

Yes, mRNA is a completely new vaccination technique and we have no idea what the long-term complications from it might be.

ornornor4• 6 years ago

Curious why you were downvoted. We don’t have the data on long term effect from mRNA vaccines, that’s a fact.

The AZ vaccine isn’t mRNA it would seem, but the other ones are so that’s still relevant.

khuey2• 6 years ago

The AstraZeneca vaccine is not an mRNA vaccine. It's also another new technique but it's not that one.

ornornor4• 6 years ago

Right. Either way, it’s a process we don’t have much data about. I really hate to feel this way because I’m absolutely for universal vaccination as a principle.

But this will give so much ammo to conspiracy lovers and antivaxxers :/

gyzmau6• 6 years ago

it's not a mRNA, but they are using a technique never commercialized, and never used at big scale same as the mRNA. It use some virus recombined, which in this case is to put a gene of the protein in a chimp adenovirus. It become an OGM.

Personal point of view, I will stay away from this one even more than the mRNA

ornornor4• 6 years ago

Why do you think this one is more dangerous?

bawolff• 6 years ago

Ugh, this seems like a terrible idea, if for no other reason ths it gives massive fuel to antivaxers.

prudhvis• 6 years ago

Why does this feel like, this code works in our dev environment, we`ll push this to production without much testing.

pkulak• 6 years ago

Because we're in the middle of an incident.

AndrewBissell9• 6 years ago

By a conservative estimate the incident is threat to about 0.5% of the servers. To prevent that, we're talking about pushing code to all of them.

sto_hristo• 6 years ago

Not surprised. As these vaccines are force pushed out of the door by basically everyone (outside forces like regulators), the producers have all the right to request such a thing.

People want 100% guarantees, but such a thing is impossible in the real world. There have to be compromises, otherwise the producers will simply bail out and the crisis continues. Whoever can deliver that 100% guarantee, can step up and get all those billions in profits, but until then... no room for complains.

jmnicolas2• 6 years ago

People want 100% guarantees, but such a thing is impossible in the real world. There have to be compromises [...]

I wouldn't mind IF people were aware they're basically alpha testers AND if vaccination isn't mandatory.

The way I see it they're not going to force vaccination, but most of the places you want to go will require it: you want to travel, go to the restaurant, watch a movie? Where's your vaccination card?

I'm the kind of guy that waits at least 1 year before upgrading my OS, I'm certainly not going to get something injected in my body before all the bugs have been ironed out.

Hoasi• 6 years ago

Previously discussed here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24253406

LaundroMat• 6 years ago

They would have had a lot less flack if they had just put a low price tag on it.

AstraZeneca to be exempt from Covid vaccine liability claims in most countries

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