Federal government to publish more details on vaccine procurement
Published: Monday, Nov 27th 2023, 15:40
العودة إلى البث المباشر
The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH) was too cautious when it published partially redacted federal contracts with Covid-19 vaccine suppliers in August 2022. This is the conclusion reached by Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner Adrian Lobsiger.
In a statement published on Monday, Lobsiger's office writes that the reasons for exemption put forward by the FOPH and the vaccine companies were not presented "with the depth of reasoning required by case law".
He therefore recommended that the FOPH grant "extensive" access to the procurement contracts between the federal government and companies such as Pfizer and Moderna. The current status of the approval of the vaccines by Swissmedic should be taken into account.
Lobsiger published the six recommendations after receiving ten requests for arbitration following the partially redacted publication of the contracts. The vaccine manufacturers and the arbitration applicants can request a ruling from the FOPH if they disagree with Lobsiger's recommendations. According to Lobsiger, the FOPH can issue such an order ex officio.
Lawyers, media professionals, private individuals
In the years 2020 to 2022, several people had requested access to the federal government's procurement contracts for Covid-19 vaccines based on the Public Access Act. According to the documents published on Monday, these include lawyers, media representatives and private individuals.
It is known, for example, that a lawyer wanted to find out how much the vaccines had cost so far and how much money had been budgeted for them in the future. An SVP cantonal councillor from Ticino also demanded insight.
The requests for access were made on the basis of the Public Access Act, according to which any person may request access to documents of the Federal Administration. In certain exceptional cases, publication of the documents may be refused, only partially granted or even postponed.
Abusive award for BAG
Last year, the journalist research network "investigativ.ch" awarded FOPH Director Anne Lévy the "Golden Brake Block" invective prize for the partial redaction of contracts. The media professionals argued that the public needed accurate information in order to trust the authorities in difficult pandemic times.
©كيستون/إسدا
Arabic 
English 
German 
French 
Spanish