Attacks on jab heroes are heinous

OF ALL the vile, insane, deranged things the EU has done in recent weeks, it’s the hounding, the persecution of, and the intent to destroy, AstraZeneca that will, in the end, wreak the most damage. Not just on the bloc but on the world.

Big Pharma isn’t usually known for its kindness or its generosity. In fact it’s one of the most vilified industries in the world – often justifiably so.

But in an act of unprecedented humanitarianism by a multinational, AstraZeneca decided to forgo a £21billion profit to supply the world with the lifesaving vaccine at cost price, ie for free.

Thanks to our brilliant Oxford research team who worked with AZ to come up with a vaccine in record time, the company could have charged what the hell it liked for it. Instead, in what will come to be seen as one of the most magnificent acts of corporate philanthropy ever, it gave it to us at cost.

So, while Pfizer is flogging its vaccine at £15 a pop (its profits are currently soaring) and Moderna is charging £28, AstraZeneca has been literally giving theirs away at £3.60, which just covers its costs. This meant poorer countries, people in the Third World, all had access to a life-saving vaccine. The World Health Organisation even hailed it as “a vaccine for the world”.

But the EU has peed all over all of that. Never, for a second, given thanks for it. Instead the toweringly stupid Ursula von der Leyen, together with the equally stupid and dangerous Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel, have been ranting about the company not supplying them with enough vaccines, which of course it would have, had they ordered them. They’ve denounced AZ’s bosses as corrupt and bombarded them with threats to seize their product and their patents if they don’t hand over as many vaccines as they demand (the actions of a rogue state not the beacon of democracy it claims to be).

But the biggest kick in the guts has been Macron and Merkel’s criminal rubbishing of the AZ vaccine claiming it was useless and causes blood clots, which every worldwide regulatory body has dismissed as tosh. Still, the damage has been done and AstraZeneca’s reputation is in the toilet. Its generosity has been rewarded with plummeting share prices and people in EU countries too scared to take the vaccine.

Currently, the EU has 26 million unused doses in fridges that could have saved lives but, thanks to Macron and Merkel’s scaremongering they won’t.

Now, AstraZeneca has said that never again will it forgo its profits because of the reputationally damaging mauling it’s had at the hands of the EU. The company, Novavax, is also now refusing to sign a supply contract with the bloc having seen its threats to AZ.

So the EU’s incompetence and bloodymindedness has already cost lives and will cost many more in the future – especially in poorer countries that desperately needed an affordable vaccine.

As for any international business looking to set up shop in the EU – many will now say “forget it” having realised the bloc can ride roughshod over legal contracts, seize their products and rubbish their reputations if it feels like it.

I remember the day the AstraZeneca vaccine was approved. It was a historical and giddy day for all of us who were cowering in the shadow of this virus. Thanks to those Oxford researchers and AZ, we’re not any more.Von der Leyen, Macron and Merkel all deserve what’s coming to them.

But this company did not deserve the opprobrium these demented fools heaped on it. What it does deserve is a Nobel Prize not just for producing a vaccine that rescued us from the teeth of Covid but for choosing not to profit on the back of it.