BAG was forced to release files by a court order
Keystone-SDA
A campaign group has accused the government of keeping the public in the dark and issuing false facts about the procurement of Covid vaccines during the pandemic.
+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox
The Federal Office of Public Health last week published partially redacted contracts with the Covid vaccine manufacturers Moderna and Novavax.
The group Action Alliance for a Free Switzerland (ABF Switzerland) has commissioned a legal analysis of the contracts. The results were described as “shocking” by the group.
Although the purpose of the contracts was “supposedly to protect health from the Covid pandemic”, none of the contracts contained any obligations for the manufacturers to deliver an effective or safe product, the group said.
More
More
How Switzerland bought rapid access to Covid vaccines
The liability risks lie solely with the state and taxpayers, it added.
The Swiss People’s Party parliamentarian and lawyer Rémy Wyssman, who fought for the disclosure of the contracts, is calling for those responsible to be held accountable and for liability to be tightened for senior managers and auditors in the administration.
+ Swiss court forces Covid vaccine transparency
Parliamentary motions
He announced that he would be submitting motions with corresponding demands in the upcoming special session of parliament.
He will ask whether the government has violated mandatory principles of procurement law and whether it has wrongly concealed the essential content of these contracts from parliament.
He questions whether the government violated the interests of the Swiss population by paying taxpayers’ money totalling over CHF1 billion for vaccines. It is also unclear whether taxpayers’ money was misappropriated.
At the latest when the vaccines were procured, the assumption of a life-threatening pandemic for the entire population was wrong, claims the campaign alliance. This is because 95% of those who died from Covid-19 were over-65 or with existing illnesses.
The government preferred to “mislead the population by pretending false safety, efficacy and necessity – especially regarding the experimental nature of the Covid vaccines – against its better judgement,” said the coalition.
Last week, the Swiss health ministry published unredacted contracts with the manufacturing companies. The ministry did not immediately issue a statement on the allegations.
More
More
Swiss health authorities defend Covid strategy
Adapted from German by AI/mga
We select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools to translate them into English. A journalist then reviews the translation for clarity and accuracy before publication.
Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles. The news stories we select have been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team from news agencies such as Bloomberg or Keystone.
If you have any questions about how we work, write to us at english@swissinfo.ch
