Democrats, Sanders Demand Biden Release Secret Covid Vaccine Contracts Inked Under Trump

Dozens of congressional Democrats and Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday urged top Biden officials to release unredacted copies of multi-billion-dollar coronavirus vaccine contracts that the Trump administration negotiated in secret with major pharmaceutical companies last year—and refused to divulge to lawmakers.

In a letter (pdf) to Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, 50 lawmakers from the House and Senate argue that public knowledge of the specific terms of the vaccine contracts "has become all the more important as manufacturers talk of boosters and seasonal immunizations, while considering 'post-pandemic' price increases."

"Taxpayers should know how their funds were spent and what secret deals were reached."

"Taxpayers are serving as the angel investors in Covid-19 vaccine and therapeutic development, assuming the costs and risk," the letter reads. "It is imperative that they also receive a stake in the outcome as well as complete transparency on how billions of tax dollars have been spent and what terms were agreed to and may still be renegotiated."

As NPR reported in September, the Trump administration worked to dodge the "regulatory oversight and transparency of traditional federal contracting mechanisms" by issuing massive vaccine contracts to Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and other major drugmakers "through a nongovernment intermediary."

"Instead of entering into contracts directly with vaccine makers, more than $6 billion in Operation Warp Speed funding has been routed through a defense contract management firm called Advanced Technologies International, Inc.," NPR noted. "ATI then awarded contracts to companies working on Covid-19 vaccines."

Further fueling concerns over the Trump administration's handling of the contracting process was a whistleblower complaint filed last May by Dr. Rick Bright, the former head of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which awarded huge contracts for vaccines and therapeutics to Johnson & Johnson and other pharma giants.

Bright—who said his removal last April was retaliation for his criticism of the White House's pandemic response—alleged in the complaint that he faced pressure from higher-ups at Trump's HHS to "ignore expert recommendations and instead to award lucrative contracts based on political connections and cronyism."

"We don't know the rewards or the incentives that the companies are getting, which might drive some companies to take additional risk or maybe do things inappropriately," Bright said in an October interview. "There's no reason to hide what's in those agreements at all. For the government to set these contracts up in this way and block that type of transparency leads me to think that there's something interesting in there they don't want discovered."

In their letter on Monday, the lawmakers demanded that the Biden administration disclose unredacted copies of all contracts, research and development agreements, and any other "arrangements entered into by the United States or any subcontractor, including Advanced Technologies International, Inc. (ATI), related to Covid-19 vaccines, therapeutics, and any other medical countermeasures."

NEW: This morning I led an effort with @BernieSanders, @SenWarren, & @janschakowsky, in a group of 50 lawmakers urging disclosure of secret COVID vaccine + therapeutic contracts with which the Trump Admin gave Big Pharma billions but refused to disclose full terms of these deals. pic.twitter.com/Kfys5xkFSC — Lloyd Doggett (@RepLloydDoggett) April 26, 2021

To substantiate their fears of impending price hikes on vaccines and coronavirus therapeutics, the lawmakers point to a Pfizer executive's recent comment predicting "a significant opportunity for our vaccine... from a pricing perspective" should Covid-19 become endemic—as many experts anticipate.

"Despite taxpayers fully underwriting Moderna's vaccine, significantly paying for Johnson & Johnson's research, and conducting some of the underlying research that contributed to Pfizer vaccines, all three companies are apparently planning to raise prices as quickly as possible," the lawmakers write. "In our exercise of congressional oversight, we seek access to these agreements to understand what protections are in place for taxpayer investments and what terms may need to be renegotiated."

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas.), chair of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee and leader of the new letter, said in a statement that "while pleased with vaccine advances, taxpayers who financed development deserve full disclosure of the same type of information a private investor would demand."

"In so many ways, the vaccines are our shot—our shot to contain the virus and our shot, developed and manufactured with at least $19 billion taxpayer dollars and over $2 billion more for therapeutics," said Doggett. "Taxpayers should know how their funds were spent and what secret deals were reached."