How Pfizer tried to bully Argentina and Brazil in exchange for vaccines
Wion News
While countries like India are sending free vaccines to poorer nations, there are companies like Pfizer which are bullying governments. The US-based company Pfizer is holding governments to ransom, interfering with their legislation, and even demanding military bases as guarantee.
Pfizer has vaccine deals with 9 latin American and Caribbean countries - Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Yurug-waae. Two major latin American nations are missing from this list are Argentina and Brazil.
What happened in Argentina?
Talks between Argentina and Pfizer began in June 2020. In July, President Alberto Fernandez held a meeting with Pfizer's Argentina CEO.
Then, Pfizer asked to be compensated for the cost of any future civil lawsuits. If someone files a civil lawsuit against Pfizer in Argentina and wins that case, the government of Argentina and not Pfizer would pay the compensation.
So, Argentina's parliament passed a new law in October 2020, but Pfizer was unhappy with its phrasing. The law said Pfizer needs to at least pay for negligence, for its own mistakes if it happens to make any in the future. Pfizer rejected this, after which Argentina offered to amend the law to define negligence more clearly - to include only vaccine distribution and delivery under negligence. Pfizer was still not happy and demanded the law be amended through a new decree, which Argentina refused. Pfizer then asked Argentina to buy an international insurance to pay for potential future cases against Pfizer, to which the country agreed.