The Health and Human Services’ Operation Warp Speed pledges to deliver 300 million doses of a COVID-19 vaccine by 2021.1 However, developing a safe and effective vaccine normally takes years and begins with animal studies. Given the urgency of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccine makers are rushing into human clinical tests and circumventing lengthy animal trials.
Such fast-tracked vaccines pose unknown risks to humans, which are magnified because governments are granting COVID-19 vaccine makers immunity from liability for all vaccine injuries and deaths that occur after the vaccines are recommended (or mandated) by public health officials.2
In August, AstraZeneca announced that most countries it expects to supply with COVID-19 vaccine will grant the pharmaceutical company liability protection when people are harmed by the new vaccine.
In the U.S., vaccine makers already have something of a “free pass” when it comes to vaccine injury liability and lawsuits through the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act of 19863 and the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness (PREP) Act, passed in 2005 (more on those later.)4
The main concern is that the combination of COVID-19 vaccines being fast-tracked to market at “warp speed” with minimal testing, together with blanket liability protection for Pharma for injuries their products cause, is a public health nightmare waiting to happen. READ MORE