Musician Vikki Spit, who was the first person in the UK to receive financial compensation from the Vaccine Damage Payment Scheme (VDPS), says she was told that commercial interests override the public’s right to know what kind of information would disqualify pharmaceutical companies from immunity from prosecution.
Vikki, whose fiance Lord Zion died as a direct result of receiving the AstraZeneca covid vaccine, submitted an FOI request to the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Statistics asking what would make the indemnity granted to AstraZeneca null and void.
Speaking on the Maajid Nawas show, Vikki said, “If they have provided falsified information like incomplete trial data or anything like that, then to my mind that should make it null and void”.
She says the reply she received stated that the Department for Business Energy and Industrial Statistics does “hold some information relating to vaccine indemnities, as per your question.”
However it continues saying: “The requested information contains commercially sensitive information with regards to contracts” and that its disclosure “would prejudice the commercial interests of the companies involved.”
Across the EU, it is standard procedure for procurement processes to include various IP protections, and safeguards against the release of proprietary information belonging to the entity which was awarded the contract, although it is within the realm of possibility that this process may be open to abuse in some cases.
The letter continued that it recognises “that there is general public interest in the disclosure of information relating to the vaccine programme”, but that there is also “a strong public interest in ensuring that the commercial interests of the government and vaccine suppliers are not damaged or undermined by disclosure of information which is not common knowledge, which could adversely impact current or future business”.
“They have literally said there is information which would affect people’s confidence in these vaccines” said Vikki adding “We know things that if we told the public they wouldn’t want to get these vaccines, so we’re not going to tell you”.