Force Majeure

 

 

# 3500

 

 

A couple of months ago, on May 6th, I wrote a blog entitled Unforgiving Numbers where I discussed the problems that vaccine manufacturing companies could face trying to export pandemic vaccine from a country before that country’s needs had been met.

 

While countries like the United States, Canada, and the UK have contracts with various vaccine manufacturing firms around the world, I can practically guarantee that each of those contracts contains what is known as a Force Majeure clause.  

 

Force Majeure  or sometimes casus fortuitus are common clauses that hold both parties harmless, and a contract invalid, if an extraordinary event beyond the control of the parties makes it impossible to fulfill an contractual obligation.

 

Events such as `acts of God’ (earthquakes, floods, volcano), riots, military action, rebellion, civil war, or governmental confiscation, nationalization, embargo, or blockade are all considered valid triggers for the Force Majeure clause.

 

In my piece last May I asked the following questions (and no, I’m certainly not the first person to ask them.  Flublogia has been actively discussing this scenario for years.):

 

Will it become politically untenable to allow substantial quantities of vaccine to be exported  from a vaccine producing country before all of its citizens are vaccinated?

And if that happens, will `have-not’ countries cut off the supply of vital goods or services until they receive substantial quantities of vaccine?

 

In other words, could we be looking at a `vaccine war’?   There are a number of experts who believe it is possible.

 

If swine flu remains mild, then perhaps these things will never come to pass.   But if the threat (or even the perception of the threat) escalates, things as the following articles says, could get ugly.

 

Today, Maria Cheng with AP brings us a terrific article, and interview with Michael Osterholm, Director of CIDRAP, that covers these and other issues in much greater detail. 

 

It’s a long article, and very much worth following the links to read in its entirety.

 

 

Fight for swine flu vaccine could get ugly

 

By MARIA CHENG – 25 minutes ago

LONDON — An ugly scramble is brewing over the swine flu vaccine — and when it becomes available, Britain, the United States and other nations could find that the contracts they signed with pharmaceutical companies are easily broken.

 

Experts warn that during a global epidemic, which the world is in now, governments may be under tremendous pressure to protect their own citizens first before allowing companies to ship doses of vaccine out of the country.

 

That does not bode well for many nations, including the United States, which makes only 20 percent of the regular flu vaccines it uses, or Britain, where all of its flu vaccines are produced abroad.

 

"This isn't rocket science," said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Diseases Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. "If there is severe disease, countries will want to hang onto the vaccine for their own citizens."

 

Experts say politicians would not be able to withstand the pressure.

 

"The consequences of shipping vaccine to another country when your own people don't have it would be devastating," added David Fedson, a retired vaccine industry executive.

 

About 70 percent of the world's existing flu vaccines are made in Europe, and only a handful of countries are self-sufficient in vaccines. The U.S. has limited flu vaccine facilities, and because factories can't be built overnight, there is no quick fix to boost vaccine supplies.

 

(Continue . . .)

 

The take-away message here is that regardless of the promises being made right now in a number of countries, there are a great many things that have to go right before a vaccine gets delivered to the arms of their people.