CEO: ‘Millions Of COVID Jabs Thrown Away’

By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News

GENEVA/BUDAPEST (Worthy News) – The CEO of pharmaceutical and biotechnology giant Moderna says his firm has to “throw away” millions of doses of COVID-19 vaccines as “nobody wants them” amid worries about side effects.

Stéphane Bancel spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in remarks recorded on video and seen by Worthy News.

“It’s sad to say, I’m in the process of throwing 30 million doses in the garbage because nobody wants them. We have a big demand problem,” Bancel noted this week.

The Moderna chief said his company contacted several governments worldwide to see if anyone wanted to take the jabs but that it has proven unsuccessful.

“We right now have governments—we tried to contact … through the embassies in Washington. Every country and nobody wants to take them,” he complained. “And so the challenge we have right now is very different to the one we had two years ago.”

He admitted that the “issue in many countries is that people don’t want vaccines,” referring to populations in countries like China, the United States, and Europe.

SIDE EFFECTS

The reluctance has been linked to concerns among skeptics about serious side effects of vaccines such as Moderna’s jab and even deaths, though investigators call those cases extremely rare.

A recent Danish study in the British Medical Journal found that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is up to four times more likely to cause heart muscle inflammation than its rival jab from Pfizer-BioNTech.

The researchers registered only 1 case per 71,400 vaccinated with Pfizer-BioNTech and 1 case per 23,800 vaccinated with Moderna. Most of the cases had been mild, the study said.

And the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in March, about 4,500 people died shortly after being vaccinated in the United States up to June 2021.

But the CDC added that “no unusual patterns” were seen in data to suggest a link to the vaccine itself.

However, many aren’t convinced, suggested Bancel’s who spoke as Moderna is set to release its “superior” Omicron- and subvariant-specific COVID-19 vaccine booster by the fall.

ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES

Yet, with COVID-19-related deaths declining and hospitalizations remaining low, several countries are stuck with vaccines they cannot use because of a lack of demand.

Economic difficulties due to the war in Ukraine mean some nations cannot afford to purchase more.

Those European nations are reportedly looking to amend their contracts with COVID-19 vaccine producers.

But the World Health Organization (WHO) still calls for 70 percent of the global population to be fully vaccinated within weeks to prevent the COVID-19 pandemic from progressing.

WHO experts say more than enough vaccines are available to cover every eligible person on earth if the doses are not hoarded or thrown away by wealthy countries.

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