RPT: REVIEW - France's Vaccine Debacle Sign Of Difficult Decisions To Come

BRUSSELS (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 18th May, 2020) The now-infamous comments of Paul Hudson, CEO of French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi about the United States being first in line for future coronavirus vaccines have been labeled clumsy and inaccurate by the company's own executives and spokespeople, but French politician Nicolas Dupont Aignan believes the comments are a symptom of the European Union's dubious policy on vaccines.

Dupont Aignan, chief of the Debout la France party and parliamentarian who once ran against current President Emmanuel Macron, lamented that the issue of vaccines was taken up at the level of Brussels, rendering individual European states powerless against a self-interested US.

"It seems that we must once again pay for the naivety and amateurism of our government. This economic war that the United States has declared was largely predictable. And the European Union presented as a 'tool of power' is today incapable of doing anything. We made the choice to manage the question of vaccines at European level and the result is there: we are still discussing, we still do not decide," Dupont Aignan said.

The politician also demonstrated that the rebuke by French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe - he said that equal access to all was non-negotiable - was, in fact, null and void due to the nature of vaccine production.

"What did the Prime Minister say which was not obvious? It is well known that the vaccine will be a 'global public good' and that patents will be widely shared. But it is equally obvious that quantities at first will be limited and that there will be a race for the first doses," he said.

Dupont Aignan noted that the French taxpayer and France's pharmaceuticals consumer market are indispensable to the company, thereby arguing that France has the right to expect vaccines once they are ready.

"The decisions to be made immediately are very simple: Sanofi has 140 million Euros in Research Tax Credit per year and sells its products on a French drug market of 27 billion euros, largely financed by paid social security, by our compatriots. This company must, therefore, commit to producing its vaccine in France as soon as it is available. If Sanofi refuses to put its industrial tool at the service of France, it can offer its patent to the Central Pharmacy of the Army, which will be able to organize itself to produce the doses," Dupont Aignan said.

Speaking to Sputnik, prominent French economist Charles Gave expressed a more sardonic view of the issue.

"There is in business life something called contracts, which make the law between the parties and a second thing called property rights. If the Americans paid $240 million to be the first served in case of discovery, served first they will be. And Mr. Macron is a donkey. The vaccine will belong to Sanofi and not to humanity," Gave told Sputnik in an email exchange.

Dupont Aignan, however, maintained his line that the government must seize the initiative lest face more scrutiny.

"The government must put in place without delay a clear and fluid distribution circuit for vaccines in mainland France and overseas. France cannot afford yet another scandal," he said.

Sanofi currently leads the pack in research and development from about 100 other projects underway worldwide.

The media worldwide, commentators and public intellectuals began discussing the ethical dimensions of vaccine distribution almost immediately after Hudson's comments were made public.

More than 140 present and past world leaders and public figures signed an open letter urging governments and the World Health Organization to do everything to ensure equity in access, going as far as calling for the "people's vaccine" to be made free of charge.

The coronavirus pandemic has put humanity before some stark decisions, but the question of the primacy of access to a vaccine may be the one to paint the clearest picture about where the world's priorities stand.