Costa Rica's New Government Overturns Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate,
Launches Investigation Into Pfizer Contract
www.nakedcapitalism.com
Costa Rica's New Government Overturns Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate, Launches
Investigation Into Pfizer Contract
Posted on August 9, 2022 by Nick Corbishley
We could end up in jail if we disclose details of the former
government's contract with Pfizer, says the country's Health Minister.
The recently elected President of Costa Rica Rodrigo Chaves last week
announced the end of compulsory vaccination against COVID-19. Speaking
alongside his health minister, Joselyn Chacón, Chaves said that not only
are the vaccines no longer mandatory; any action taken against anyone
who does not want to get vaccinated will be in violation of the law.
Chaves also called for unvaccinated workers who had lost their jobs to
be reinstated and announced the launch of an investigation into the
vaccine contracts the previous government signed with Pfizer-BioNTech.
Costa Rica: A Pioneer of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates
Costa Rica was the first country in Central America to implement a
COVID-19 vaccine mandate. That was in September 2021, when Chaves'
predecessor, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, was holding the reins. In November
2021, Costa Rica became the first country in the world to mandate
Covid-19 vaccines for minors, with all children 5 and older obligated by
law to get vaccinated, barring medical exemptions. It was a hugely
controversial decision that, as in the US and other countries,
represented a line in the sand for many parents.
The mandate meant that a child could get vaccinated even if their
parents did not consent, said Roman Macaya Hayes, then-director of Costa
Rica's Social Security Institute. Macaya Hayes is now under
investigation by the Deputy Prosecutor's Office of the 1st Judicial
Circuit of San José for alleged prevarication. So too is Daniel Salas,
the former Minister of Health who now works in the US with the Pan
American Health Organization (PAHO), as well as six members of the
National Vaccination and Epidemiology Commission (CNVE), two of whom
purportedly participated in decisions regarding COVID-19 immunization
even though their appointments to the CNVE had expired.
That alone is enough to invalidate the acts agreed upon by the CNVE,
says President Chaves. His government will also investigate the former
Alvarado government's massive purchase of COVID-19 vaccines in April
2022, even as the vaccination campaign was losing steam.
We are going to investigate why it is they bought so many vaccines when
the data available showed the market was already saturated, Chaves said
in his weekly press conference last week. Millions of dollars' worth of
vaccines were purchased at a time that the vaccination rate was already
waning. I have no idea how much money was squandered on vaccines that
are not going to be used and are going to expire.
Of course, Chaves, a right-wing populist and former World
Bank-economist, could be doing all of this just to score political
points against his predecessor. However, given his predecessor, Carlos
Alvarado Quesada, was already a political corpse on leaving government
with an approval rating of just 18%, while Chaves has an approval rating
of 70% following his first two and a half months in office, it is unlikely.
Costa Rica's health minister, Joselyn Chacón, said she could not divulge
any of the details of the Pfizer contract due to secrecy clauses
embedded deep within the contract. She also alleged that Beatriz Solís
Worsfold, the daughter of former President of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo
Solís (2014-18) and a corporate lawyer with Pfizer since 2018, was
instrumental in drawing up the contract: If we release details of the
contract we could end up in jail because we would be violating a
contract drawn up by the daughter of former president Luis Guillermo Solís.
Pfizer has denied the allegations. In remarks to Costa Rican
fact-checking website Doble Check, the company said that Solís
Worsfold's responsibilities do not include participation in the
negotiation processes with the government of Costa Rica or with any
other government for the purchase of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against
COVID-19. Pfizer added that the negotiation processes for the
distribution of COVID-19 vaccines are conducted by the company's local,
regional and global teams, and that these processes are broadly similar
throughout the region and at a global level.
Pfizer's Sordid Vaccine Sales Practices
Those processes have also been highly controversial wherever they have
been deployed. In Latin America the company was accused of holding the
governments of even the largest countries to ransom, as I noted in a
previous article (Pfizer's Sordid Vaccine Sales Practices in Latin
America Could Be a Big Boon for China and Russia):
It is a time-honoured custom of business that manufacturers provide
certain basic guarantees to prospective buyers about their product's
quality and safety. But U.S. pharma giant Pfizer wants to turn this on
its head as it sells its experimental mRNA vaccine to desperate
governments around the world. For Pfizer, it's the buyer not the
seller that should provide all of the guarantees. And that includes
countries putting up sovereign assets, such as federal bank reserves,
embassy buildings military bases and even glaciers, as insurance against
the cost of any future legal cases involving Pfizer BioNTech's vaccine,
reports the Bureau of International Journalism (TBIJ):
Officials from Argentina and the other Latin American country, which
cannot be named as it has signed a confidentiality agreement with
Pfizer, said the company's negotiators demanded additional indemnity
against any civil claims citizens might file if they experienced adverse
effects after being inoculated. In Argentina and Brazil, Pfizer asked
for sovereign assets to be put up as collateral for any future legal costs.
One official who was present in the unnamed country's negotiations
described Pfizer's demands as high-level bullying and said the
government felt like it was being held to ransom in order to access
life-saving vaccines.
Campaigners are already warning of a vaccine apartheid in which rich
Western countries may be inoculated years before poorer regions. Now,
legal experts have raised concerns that Pfizer's demands amount to an
abuse of power.
According to Professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health
Organization's Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law,
what Pfizer appears to want is total immunity from all forms of liability:
[T]he company would not be held liable for rare adverse effects or for
its own acts of negligence, fraud or malice. This includes those linked
to company practices say, if Pfizer sent the wrong vaccine or made
errors during manufacturing.
Some liability protection is warranted, but certainly not for fraud,
gross negligence, mismanagement, failure to follow good manufacturing
practices. Companies have no right to ask for indemnity for these things.
At the time of that article's publication (March 2021), governments of
countries both large and small were desperate to get their hands on
enough vaccines for their population, and as such were willing to kowtow
to almost every demand from Pfizer to get their hands on what was then
being marketed as the most effective vaccine against COVID. Now, many of
those same governments have vast stockpiles of unused Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccines in their possession, and those vaccines have proven to be not
nearly as effective or as safe as initially claimed.
In the interim, more information has seeped out about Pfizer's vaccine
contracts, allowing journalists and researchers to piece together a more
(but far from) complete picture of the company's sordid negotiating
practices. In October 2021, Public Citizen released a report revealing
that Pfizer:
Reserves the Right to Silence Governments. Brazil's contract with Pfizer
included an additional term that Public Citizen had not seen in other
Latin American agreements. The Brazilian government is essentially
prohibited from making any public announcement concerning the
existence, subject matter or terms of [the] Agreement or discussing its
relationship with Pfizer without the prior written consent of the
company. Just like that, Pfizer was able to silence the government of
Latin America's biggest country. In most other contracts the
non-disclosure agreement applies to both parties.
Controls donations. The Brazilian government is also prohibited from
accepting donations of Pfizer vaccines from other countries without
Pfizer's prior authorization. It is also barred from donating,
distributing, exporting, or otherwise transporting the vaccine outside
Brazil again, without Pfizer's permission. Contravention of this
clause would be considered an uncurable material breach of Brazil's
agreement with Pfizer, allowing the US pharmaceutical to immediately
terminate the agreement. Upon termination, Brazil would be required to
pay the full price for any remaining contracted doses.
Secures IP Waivers for Itself. Despite Pfizer's strident defence of
intellectual property at least when said property is its own the
vaccine contracts its has signed with governments shift responsibility
for any intellectual property infringement that Pfizer might commit to
the government purchasers. As such, the contracts affect allow Pfizer to
use anyone's intellectual property it pleases largely without consequence.
Can take any and all disputes to arbitration. No great surprise here.
Public Citizen cites the UK as an example. In the event of a contractual
dispute between Downing Street and Pfizer, a secret panel not a
national court is empowered to make the final decision. The
arbitration is conducted under the Rules of Arbitration of the
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Both parties are required to
keep everything secret. The Albania draft contract and Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Dominican Republic and Peru agreements require the governments
to go even further, with contractual disputes subject to ICC arbitration
applying New York law.
Can seize state assets. In the case of Brazil, Chile and Colombia, the
government expressly and irrevocably waives any right of immunity which
either it or its assets may have or acquire in the future to enforce
any arbitration award (emphasis added). For Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and
the Dominican Republic, this includes immunity against precautionary
seizure of any of its assets.
Calls the shots on key decisions. Colombia's contract with Pfizer
includes a gem of a clause stipulating that the Colombian government
must demonstrate, in a manner satisfactory to Suppliers, that Suppliers
and their affiliates will have adequate protection, as determined in
Suppliers' sole discretion (emphasis added by Public Citizen) from
liability claims. In other words, if suppliers fail to supply the goods
requested by the time agreed in the contract, Colombia's government has
agreed that it will have no means of recourse.
Given the contractual conditions outlined above, it is hard to imagine
any country in Latin America let alone one as tiny and as dependent on
the US as Costa Rica managing to overturn or override any of the
clauses in their contract with Pfizer. As Public Citizen notes at the
end of its report, Pfizer's ability to control key decisions reflects
the power imbalance in vaccine negotiations. Under the vast majority of
contracts, Pfizer's interests come first.
Indeed, just a month ago a judge in Uruguay presiding over a case
brought by parents opposing the vaccination of children over the age of
five demanded that the Government present to him all documentation on
the terms and conditions of its contract for Pfizer BioNTech's COVID-19
vaccines as well as the full biochemical composition of the vaccine.
When the government refused to comply, the judge suspended the
vaccination of all children under 13. The government quickly appealed
and within a couple of weeks Uruguay's court of appeal overturned the
judge's decision.
Back in Costa Rica, the Chaves government's rescission of the vaccine
mandates faces a wall of resistance from Costa Rica's public health
authorities. According to the Costa Rican daily La Nación, the country's
Social Security Fund (CRSS) insists that the vaccine mandates remain in
force, arguing that the Chaves government's decree overturning the
previous government's mandates was merely a petition', a request' or
a plea', that does not imply an obligation or imperative to act
accordingly on the part of the body that holds said competence.
The CRSS has also provided jurisprudence from the Constitutional Court
supporting the mandatory nature of the vaccine as a public health
measure. As such, at least for the moment, public sector employees fired
for refusing the vaccine will not be reinstated in their positions.
Launches Investigation Into Pfizer Contract
Costa Rica's New Government Overturns Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate, Launches Investigation Into Pfizer Contract | naked capitalism
"We could end up in jail" if we disclose details of the former government's contract with Pfizer, says the country's Health Minister.
Costa Rica's New Government Overturns Covid-19 Vaccine Mandate, Launches
Investigation Into Pfizer Contract
Posted on August 9, 2022 by Nick Corbishley
We could end up in jail if we disclose details of the former
government's contract with Pfizer, says the country's Health Minister.
The recently elected President of Costa Rica Rodrigo Chaves last week
announced the end of compulsory vaccination against COVID-19. Speaking
alongside his health minister, Joselyn Chacón, Chaves said that not only
are the vaccines no longer mandatory; any action taken against anyone
who does not want to get vaccinated will be in violation of the law.
Chaves also called for unvaccinated workers who had lost their jobs to
be reinstated and announced the launch of an investigation into the
vaccine contracts the previous government signed with Pfizer-BioNTech.
Costa Rica: A Pioneer of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates
Costa Rica was the first country in Central America to implement a
COVID-19 vaccine mandate. That was in September 2021, when Chaves'
predecessor, Carlos Alvarado Quesada, was holding the reins. In November
2021, Costa Rica became the first country in the world to mandate
Covid-19 vaccines for minors, with all children 5 and older obligated by
law to get vaccinated, barring medical exemptions. It was a hugely
controversial decision that, as in the US and other countries,
represented a line in the sand for many parents.
The mandate meant that a child could get vaccinated even if their
parents did not consent, said Roman Macaya Hayes, then-director of Costa
Rica's Social Security Institute. Macaya Hayes is now under
investigation by the Deputy Prosecutor's Office of the 1st Judicial
Circuit of San José for alleged prevarication. So too is Daniel Salas,
the former Minister of Health who now works in the US with the Pan
American Health Organization (PAHO), as well as six members of the
National Vaccination and Epidemiology Commission (CNVE), two of whom
purportedly participated in decisions regarding COVID-19 immunization
even though their appointments to the CNVE had expired.
That alone is enough to invalidate the acts agreed upon by the CNVE,
says President Chaves. His government will also investigate the former
Alvarado government's massive purchase of COVID-19 vaccines in April
2022, even as the vaccination campaign was losing steam.
We are going to investigate why it is they bought so many vaccines when
the data available showed the market was already saturated, Chaves said
in his weekly press conference last week. Millions of dollars' worth of
vaccines were purchased at a time that the vaccination rate was already
waning. I have no idea how much money was squandered on vaccines that
are not going to be used and are going to expire.
Of course, Chaves, a right-wing populist and former World
Bank-economist, could be doing all of this just to score political
points against his predecessor. However, given his predecessor, Carlos
Alvarado Quesada, was already a political corpse on leaving government
with an approval rating of just 18%, while Chaves has an approval rating
of 70% following his first two and a half months in office, it is unlikely.
Costa Rica's health minister, Joselyn Chacón, said she could not divulge
any of the details of the Pfizer contract due to secrecy clauses
embedded deep within the contract. She also alleged that Beatriz Solís
Worsfold, the daughter of former President of Costa Rica Luis Guillermo
Solís (2014-18) and a corporate lawyer with Pfizer since 2018, was
instrumental in drawing up the contract: If we release details of the
contract we could end up in jail because we would be violating a
contract drawn up by the daughter of former president Luis Guillermo Solís.
Pfizer has denied the allegations. In remarks to Costa Rican
fact-checking website Doble Check, the company said that Solís
Worsfold's responsibilities do not include participation in the
negotiation processes with the government of Costa Rica or with any
other government for the purchase of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against
COVID-19. Pfizer added that the negotiation processes for the
distribution of COVID-19 vaccines are conducted by the company's local,
regional and global teams, and that these processes are broadly similar
throughout the region and at a global level.
Pfizer's Sordid Vaccine Sales Practices
Those processes have also been highly controversial wherever they have
been deployed. In Latin America the company was accused of holding the
governments of even the largest countries to ransom, as I noted in a
previous article (Pfizer's Sordid Vaccine Sales Practices in Latin
America Could Be a Big Boon for China and Russia):
It is a time-honoured custom of business that manufacturers provide
certain basic guarantees to prospective buyers about their product's
quality and safety. But U.S. pharma giant Pfizer wants to turn this on
its head as it sells its experimental mRNA vaccine to desperate
governments around the world. For Pfizer, it's the buyer not the
seller that should provide all of the guarantees. And that includes
countries putting up sovereign assets, such as federal bank reserves,
embassy buildings military bases and even glaciers, as insurance against
the cost of any future legal cases involving Pfizer BioNTech's vaccine,
reports the Bureau of International Journalism (TBIJ):
Officials from Argentina and the other Latin American country, which
cannot be named as it has signed a confidentiality agreement with
Pfizer, said the company's negotiators demanded additional indemnity
against any civil claims citizens might file if they experienced adverse
effects after being inoculated. In Argentina and Brazil, Pfizer asked
for sovereign assets to be put up as collateral for any future legal costs.
One official who was present in the unnamed country's negotiations
described Pfizer's demands as high-level bullying and said the
government felt like it was being held to ransom in order to access
life-saving vaccines.
Campaigners are already warning of a vaccine apartheid in which rich
Western countries may be inoculated years before poorer regions. Now,
legal experts have raised concerns that Pfizer's demands amount to an
abuse of power.
According to Professor Lawrence Gostin, director of the World Health
Organization's Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law,
what Pfizer appears to want is total immunity from all forms of liability:
[T]he company would not be held liable for rare adverse effects or for
its own acts of negligence, fraud or malice. This includes those linked
to company practices say, if Pfizer sent the wrong vaccine or made
errors during manufacturing.
Some liability protection is warranted, but certainly not for fraud,
gross negligence, mismanagement, failure to follow good manufacturing
practices. Companies have no right to ask for indemnity for these things.
At the time of that article's publication (March 2021), governments of
countries both large and small were desperate to get their hands on
enough vaccines for their population, and as such were willing to kowtow
to almost every demand from Pfizer to get their hands on what was then
being marketed as the most effective vaccine against COVID. Now, many of
those same governments have vast stockpiles of unused Pfizer-BioNTech
vaccines in their possession, and those vaccines have proven to be not
nearly as effective or as safe as initially claimed.
In the interim, more information has seeped out about Pfizer's vaccine
contracts, allowing journalists and researchers to piece together a more
(but far from) complete picture of the company's sordid negotiating
practices. In October 2021, Public Citizen released a report revealing
that Pfizer:
Reserves the Right to Silence Governments. Brazil's contract with Pfizer
included an additional term that Public Citizen had not seen in other
Latin American agreements. The Brazilian government is essentially
prohibited from making any public announcement concerning the
existence, subject matter or terms of [the] Agreement or discussing its
relationship with Pfizer without the prior written consent of the
company. Just like that, Pfizer was able to silence the government of
Latin America's biggest country. In most other contracts the
non-disclosure agreement applies to both parties.
Controls donations. The Brazilian government is also prohibited from
accepting donations of Pfizer vaccines from other countries without
Pfizer's prior authorization. It is also barred from donating,
distributing, exporting, or otherwise transporting the vaccine outside
Brazil again, without Pfizer's permission. Contravention of this
clause would be considered an uncurable material breach of Brazil's
agreement with Pfizer, allowing the US pharmaceutical to immediately
terminate the agreement. Upon termination, Brazil would be required to
pay the full price for any remaining contracted doses.
Secures IP Waivers for Itself. Despite Pfizer's strident defence of
intellectual property at least when said property is its own the
vaccine contracts its has signed with governments shift responsibility
for any intellectual property infringement that Pfizer might commit to
the government purchasers. As such, the contracts affect allow Pfizer to
use anyone's intellectual property it pleases largely without consequence.
Can take any and all disputes to arbitration. No great surprise here.
Public Citizen cites the UK as an example. In the event of a contractual
dispute between Downing Street and Pfizer, a secret panel not a
national court is empowered to make the final decision. The
arbitration is conducted under the Rules of Arbitration of the
International Chamber of Commerce (ICC). Both parties are required to
keep everything secret. The Albania draft contract and Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Dominican Republic and Peru agreements require the governments
to go even further, with contractual disputes subject to ICC arbitration
applying New York law.
Can seize state assets. In the case of Brazil, Chile and Colombia, the
government expressly and irrevocably waives any right of immunity which
either it or its assets may have or acquire in the future to enforce
any arbitration award (emphasis added). For Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and
the Dominican Republic, this includes immunity against precautionary
seizure of any of its assets.
Calls the shots on key decisions. Colombia's contract with Pfizer
includes a gem of a clause stipulating that the Colombian government
must demonstrate, in a manner satisfactory to Suppliers, that Suppliers
and their affiliates will have adequate protection, as determined in
Suppliers' sole discretion (emphasis added by Public Citizen) from
liability claims. In other words, if suppliers fail to supply the goods
requested by the time agreed in the contract, Colombia's government has
agreed that it will have no means of recourse.
Given the contractual conditions outlined above, it is hard to imagine
any country in Latin America let alone one as tiny and as dependent on
the US as Costa Rica managing to overturn or override any of the
clauses in their contract with Pfizer. As Public Citizen notes at the
end of its report, Pfizer's ability to control key decisions reflects
the power imbalance in vaccine negotiations. Under the vast majority of
contracts, Pfizer's interests come first.
Indeed, just a month ago a judge in Uruguay presiding over a case
brought by parents opposing the vaccination of children over the age of
five demanded that the Government present to him all documentation on
the terms and conditions of its contract for Pfizer BioNTech's COVID-19
vaccines as well as the full biochemical composition of the vaccine.
When the government refused to comply, the judge suspended the
vaccination of all children under 13. The government quickly appealed
and within a couple of weeks Uruguay's court of appeal overturned the
judge's decision.
Back in Costa Rica, the Chaves government's rescission of the vaccine
mandates faces a wall of resistance from Costa Rica's public health
authorities. According to the Costa Rican daily La Nación, the country's
Social Security Fund (CRSS) insists that the vaccine mandates remain in
force, arguing that the Chaves government's decree overturning the
previous government's mandates was merely a petition', a request' or
a plea', that does not imply an obligation or imperative to act
accordingly on the part of the body that holds said competence.
The CRSS has also provided jurisprudence from the Constitutional Court
supporting the mandatory nature of the vaccine as a public health
measure. As such, at least for the moment, public sector employees fired
for refusing the vaccine will not be reinstated in their positions.
