Moderna and AstraZeneca revelations before the European Parliament's COVID Committee.

Moderna and AstraZeneca revelations before the European Parliament's COVID Committee.

MEP Cristian Terheș asked Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel and AstraZeneca Vice President Iskra Reic a series of questions on September 5, 2022. They were asked to clarify whether they have decoded the DNA of the COVID virus, why they are not liable for adverse reactions, when they will publish contracts with the European Commission, and more.

In their responses, Moderna and AstraZeneca representatives explained that they produced the vaccines at the request of states/governments that asked them to produce the vaccines quickly, and that they therefore required them to provide protection for payment of potential damages/compensation.

"In terms of liability for adverse effects, like all manufacturers, we wanted governments to approve a vaccine quickly. That's why it was important for conditional approval that we were given some guarantees about damages, because we couldn't have guarantees. They wanted the vaccine quickly. They didn't give the manufacturers time for long-term studies because this is a pandemic," Stéphane Bancel, CEO of Moderna, responded to a question from MP Cristian Terheș.

"The liability and indemnity clause was discussed and agreed with many governments around the world because they all wanted to see how we could speed up the production and delivery of vaccines. And as I mentioned, this is considered standard operating procedure in emergency situations and equally [procedure] that protects and supports everyone to move forward at top speed and do the best possible in terms of [vaccine] production and manufacturing," Iskra Reic, executive vice president of AstraZeneca, said in response to the same question.

The Moderna CEO also acknowledged that the bivalent boosters recently approved in the U.S. have not yet been tested in humans.