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EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

politico.eu

11–20 of 116 posts

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#11

To be honest here in Ireland where majority of vaccinations have been Pfizer people seemed to stop caring about AZ and there is a sizeable chunk of people who are refusing AZ (my own elderly parents and their siblings really scared now and in despair) due to issues recently highlighted (dont shoot messenger, imho risks are small but i can see why some might be hesitant when alternatives are/will be available) I say t…

In my opinion, the media and European politicians are responsible for this vaccine skepticism. You reap what you sow.

The politicians banned the vaccine despite there not being scientific evidence to suggest that was a reasonable choice. The media in Europe hyped this up massively.

In the UK, neither of these things happened, and despite there being some degree of skepticism, the vast majority of people are still willing to have the AZ jab.

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#12
post #7

Does anyone know why all of the geopolitical discourse in the UK and Europe has been around arguing over a small supply, rather than about increasing manufacturing capacity?

I don't know any details, but my understanding if that manufacturing vaccines is quite difficult.

Me neither, but I find it hard to believe that it is more difficult than remaining stuck in the pandemic.

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#13
At this point, AZ must really regret having gone down the road of working with Oxford to supply a Covid vaccine. They are not even making money off it at the moment. Pfizer on the other hand hit gold with their BioNTech collaboration. They are making 10+ B this year and probably even more in brand value. AZ on the other hand lost billions of brand value. Is there a morale of this story?

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#14
post #9
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the other vaccines also slightly elevate the chance of blood clotting. To less than the elevation caused by the contraceptive pill.

The way I understood it these blood clots are a different kind of blood clot, and almost always deadly. But the amounts of "accepted" blood clots with the contraceptive pill are quite horrific.

I believe a lot of people are missing the point here that you can choose whether or not to the take the pill. Many women I know choose not to take it because of health side effects. The issue of side effects with vaccines is a lot of people feel like they are being coerced through talk of vaccine passports and other measures.

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#15
A couple of months ago Politico also reported that the EU had waived its right to sue in the AZ contract[1], so what gives? Would it kill Politico to give some additional context when a story seems to blatantly contradict its own reporting?

[1] https://www.politico.eu/article/coronavirus-vaccine-europe-c...

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#16

Does anyone know why all of the geopolitical discourse in the UK and Europe has been around arguing over a small supply, rather than about increasing manufacturing capacity?

> rather than about increasing manufacturing capacity?

They have looked into increasing supply (see the kerfuffle about the Halix plant) but in the end it seems that the process AZ is using scales poorly. (Not sure how many were produced by the SII, probably not much more than that)

I think AZ delivered approx. 25Mi to the UK and 30Mi to the EU. Compare with Pfizer who delivered somewhere close to 300Mi doses already.

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#17

Does anyone know why all of the geopolitical discourse in the UK and Europe has been around arguing over a small supply, rather than about increasing manufacturing capacity?

Where do you get that from? There's a huge effort to scale up the production up, which you can see by the weekly increasing output for example of Biontech [0]. Discussing one thing doesn't exclude taking care of another.

[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-bionte...

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#18

At this point, AZ must really regret having gone down the road of working with Oxford to supply a Covid vaccine. They are not even making money off it at the moment. Pfizer on the other hand hit gold with their BioNTech collaboration. They are making 10+ B this year and probably even more in brand value. AZ on the other hand lost billions of brand value. Is there a morale of this story?

I bet a lot of people will hate to hear that but I think the morale of the story is "Don't overpromise and underdeliver".

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#19
Sorry if this is considered off-topic, but I mus thave surely missed something about why AstraZeneca is seemingly the only choice on the vaccine market.

I am German, we developed the Pfizer vaccine, but there is _no_ news about it, it seems like the AZ vaccine is the only option.

Is it a case that Pfizer wasn't viable, wasn't used here, or only made lucrative contracts with other countries, or is it being used, quietly without drama because they are fulfilling their obligations, unlike AZ who seems to be in the news every day.

I celebrated the success of the scientists (Turkish immigrants) who developed it, after the waves and waves of racism in Germany, having immigrants develop a vaccine helped vindicate some of our nation's political decisions to open the doors and borders, that we do in fact benefit, and, sadly now they seem to be invisible again.

Re: EU preparing legal case against AstraZeneca over vaccine shortfalls

#20
post #3

To be honest here in Ireland where majority of vaccinations have been Pfizer people seemed to stop caring about AZ and there is a sizeable chunk of people who are refusing AZ (my own elderly parents and their siblings really scared now and in despair) due to issues recently highlighted (dont shoot messenger, imho risks are small but i can see why some might be hesitant when alternatives are/will be available) I say t…

But the other vaccines also slightly elevate the chance of blood clotting. To less than the elevation caused by the contraceptive pill.

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