Why give immunity to pharmaceuticals?

**Michal Jarmoluk’s photo in Pixabay.** Many countries give immunity to pharmaceutical companies against possible injuries caused by vaccines.

Like the US, many other countries also follow the policy of legal immunity for pharmaceutical companies against a possible injuries caused by vaccines. The issue is the fact that it is officially considered that vaccines save a lot more people than they kill. Coincidence or not, the truth is that there is no accounting worldwide for deaths and other damages caused by vaccines. Why? Does this accounting undermine vaccine’s success? The vaccination victims are a minority, so it does not matter? What if death or serious injury happens in our family?

In Portugal, contracts with pharmacists, as in many other countries, are confidential. The conditions given by the State to pharmaceutical companies are secret, as well as the value that public vaults pay to pharmacists every year for vaccines in Portugal.

A free policy, according to governments, including the Portuguese one, that is paid with the money of all taxpayers. And if something goes wrong, every citizen has to prove the scientific relationship and have enough money to file a lawsuit against the state. And if, appeal after appeal, the citizen comes out victorious, then the state pays the compensation with the tax’s money that is paid by all of us.

A strategy that not even the cradle of democracy has adopted. In the US, there is a legal immunity for pharmaceutical companies, but a portion of the revenues from the sales of vaccines will pay for compensation if the State is convicted by the Vaccine Court. The latest public data in the US shows that the Vaccine Court has already ordered the payment of $3.1 billion in compensation. It may seem a lot of money but the truth is that this amount is less than what pharmaceutical companies and other entities profit annually from the sell of vaccines, although the industry never reports numbers on the vaccine business.

BBC, Forbes, GlobalData, and IMS data, show that the pharmaceutical industry was, by the end of 2014, the most profitable business of all, with a median profit margin of 42%. The giants Johnson & Johnson, Novartis, Pfizer, Roche, Merck, GsK, and Abbvie generated profits of 65.2 billion euros. However, of this total, it is not known which part is generated by vaccines.