PANDEMIC OF OPACITY
Mexico has signed contracts for 9 COVID-19 vaccines and received donations from the US, Canada, South Korea, and Moderna. Adding contracts and donations, Mexico has secured 281,742,800 vaccine doses. A total of 215,585,350 vaccine doses have been administered. After multiple requests for access to information over two years, the Supreme Court has ruled that the public versions of the contracts should be published. However, these versions still do not disclose the amount of doses purchased, the price of the doses, and the companies’ disclaimers. The companies had requested the Mexican government to withhold this information, and the government had agreed. Therefore, it is impossible to determine the exact amount of public funds paid to each vaccine-producing company.
JABS AND CONTRACTS
All vaccine procurement contracts were directly awarded. Mexico secured 260,930,000 doses via COVAX and pharmaceutical company contracts. In addition, Mexico received 20,812,800 doses via vaccine donations from the company Moderna, the US government, the Canadian government, the South Korean government, and the governments of Austria, Belgium, Croatia, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden via COVAX.
MASSIVE PROFITS, NO INFORMATION
We can access public information that lets us know the number of vaccine doses contracted with each company. However, we only have confirmation that Mexico paid 309 million dollars for 77.4 million doses of AstraZeneca and committed an advance payment of US$ 159,876,920 to Gavi Alliance for 51,100,100 doses. The government’s contract with Pfizer was initially for 34.4 million doses, but it has since been extended and renegotiated, though this information was kept private. Mexico has already received 50.2 million doses of the Comirnaty vaccine and 8 million doses of the pediatric Comirnaty vaccine. As of now, the government has contracted 35 million doses of the Cansino Biologics vaccine, but only 14.1 million doses have been received. Additionally, they have secured 20 million doses of Sinovac, 24 million doses of Sputnik V, of which 20 million have been received, and 2.03 million of the Covishield vaccine from the Serum Institute of India. Moreover, the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology of Cuba has provided 9 million doses of the Abdala vaccine. In addition, donations of 1,350,000 doses of Janssen vaccine, 6,272,000 doses of Moderna vaccine, 804,000 doses of Pfizer pediatric vaccine, 3 million of Pfizer vaccine, and an additional 9,386,800 from AstraZeneca have been received.
CORRUPTION AND IMMUNITY
The companies that benefited from vaccine contracts asked that information on the contracts be withheld. In Mexico, this violates Article 70.XXVII and 70.XXVIII of the General Law on Transparency and Access to Information, and as a result, the government has been violating the right to information established in Article 6 of the Constitution. This is a common mechanism of corporate capture that companies have used to continue negotiating the price of doses and terms of contracting with the highest bidders, which has, in turn, caused the phenomenon of stockpiling vaccines in the wealthiest countries. Such conduct is not unique to the Mexican government. Companies leverage their power to impose their terms in countries with weak institutions permeable to corporate capture. In response to corporate pressure, 13 countries in Latin America amended their laws to purchase vaccines between September and February 2021. It is of crucial importance to gain access to information on contracts and public and private funding for vaccine development and acquisition because concealing such information raises the risk of conflicts of interest and corruption.
COVID BENEFIT$
The companies that produce COVID-19 vaccines do not publish information on their beneficial owners. Through several public and private databases, PODER has obtained information on the leading shareholders, owners, and controllers of companies with vaccine contracts with Mexico. In the case of Gavi Alliance, we have published information on its donors. BlackRock, Inc. invests in 6 vaccine companies used in Mexico. BlackRock, Capital Research & Mgmt Co., and The Vanguard Group, Inc. are the leading investors in AstraZeneca. Ugur Sahin is the primary controller of BioNTech. The Russian Federation is the leading investor in the Gamaleya National Center of Epidemiology and Microbiology, which produces the Sputnik V vaccine. The government of the Republic of Cuba controls Grupo de las Industrias Biotecnológica y Farmacéutica de Cuba (BioCubaFarma), which produces the Abdala vaccine. Tao Zhu is the most important beneficial owner of Cansino. The Vanguard Group Inc., BlackRock Inc., and State Street Global Advisors Inc. are the major shareholders of Johnson & Johnson. Baillie Gifford & Co, Vanguard Group Inc., and BlackRock Inc. are the majority shareholders of Moderna. BlackRock and The Vanguard are also significant shareholders of Pfizer. Saif Partners IV, Yin Weidong, Prime Success, LP, and Vivo Capital, LLC are the beneficiaries of Sinovac. Cyrus Poonawalla is the founder, director, and beneficial owner of Serum Institute of India.
