Translated with Google Language Tools from:

http://www.rtbf.be/info/belgique/politique/grippe-h1n1-le-contrat-e...
H1N1: Belgian state bound to GSK, the contract revealed

06.05.10 - 11:37

The contract, confidential but carried by favourable winds to reporters, signed between the Belgian State and the GSK company on vaccines against H1N1 is very favorable to the manufacturer. The state is indeed bound hand and foot to the supplier.

One year ago, the whole world discovers with amazement in Mexico the unprecedented H1N1 influenza fever. Early June, the World Health Organization, WHO, triggered the alert for a pandemic.
In an emergency, on July 22, while the clinical tests of the vaccine are not completed, the Health Minister Laurette Onkelinx, signs a contract with the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline to purchase 12 million 600 thousand doses.

A confidential contract to say the least, even classified top secret. Our colleagues from Le Soir journal have been able to get it, and we learn that it is very favorable to the manufacturer.

But the most astonishing clause is that the Department of Public Health clears the company of all its responsibilities in case of death or serious side effects. In addition, GSK does not even guarantee the quality or efficiency or even the security of its own vaccine. Didn't the Belgian government buy a cat in a bag?

A specialized legal expert who has worked for several years in the Federal Public Service of Health, Philippe Van Lagendonck, replied: "It (i.e. GSK) already has the advantages of not having to self-finance clinical trials of the product which is disputed because of its side effects and it sells the maximum at the maximum price, no matter what. So it was decreed at one point, that two doses are not required but only one is sufficient, but regardless, the vaccines are sold and must be paid. Here, there is a disproportion that has no purpose except to comply with the commercial purpose only."

This is not all, the contract limits the responsibility of GSK to 50% maximum of the total amount of the invoice. Therefore, the state is indeed bound hand and foot to its supplier.
No member of the Parliament, so far, had had the opportunity to read the contract. Therese Snoy, ecologist, president of the Health Committee in the House responds: "The Minister said that what was available on the internet was all that was necessary for us and the rest was related to commercial confidentiality. But what I discovered as a clause has nothing to do with trade secrets. These are clauses that bind the responsibility of the State, and thus establishes the relationship between the company and the state but which are incredibly against public interest."