Moderna in Trouble in UK for Offering Kids Money and Teddy Bears to Participate in COVID Vaccine Trials
Moderna faces suspension or expulsion from a U.K. trade group for breaking several industry rules, including offering children teddy bears and large payments to participate in COVID-19 trials.
Pharma giant Moderna faces suspension or expulsion from a U.K. trade group for breaking several industry rules, including offering children teddy bears and large payments to participate in COVID-19 trials, The Telegraph reported.
The vaccine maker is facing an audit by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), an independent, self-regulatory body established by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, which it joined in 2023.
In a ruling expected to be made public in the coming days, the company was found to have committed several violations of industry rules, including misleading the regulator about when it became aware that financial incentives were being offered to children.
If sanctioned, Moderna will be only the tenth company in 40 years to be suspended from the PMCPA, according to The Telegraph.
The PMCPA said the company’s practices were “unacceptable” and damaged the industry’s reputation.
In October 2024, the regulator fined Moderna 14,000 pounds ($18,788) after the Children’s Covid Vaccine Advisory Council submitted a complaint about “inappropriate financial inducement” offered to children and their parents to participate in the vaccine maker’s clinical trial for COVID-19 vaccines.
The complaint criticized Moderna for initially offering children’s families 1,505 pounds ($2,020) to participate in its NextCOVE clinical trial, testing Moderna’s mRNA vaccine in children ages 12 and up.
The council cited concerns raised by the research ethics committee that approved the clinical study, which said the payment offered, “placed the children at risk of coercion.” The organization required that Moderna reduce the offer before recruitment could begin.
Moderna reduced the amount to 185 pounds ($248), yet at least one clinical trial site continued to offer the high payments.
Moderna claimed it took action as soon as it was notified about the continued high cash offer in January 2024. However, new evidence shows that the U.K. children’s health advocacy group UsForThem informed senior executives of the issue in August 2023, but Moderna took no action.
In February of this year, the company was ordered to pay nearly 44,000 pounds ($59,049) after 12-year-olds were offered a teddy bear to join the same trials. Advertisements aimed at children told them, “All our junior volunteers get a lovely certificate and a ‘be part of the research’ teddy bear.” At least two online articles also directly target children.
The U.K.’s Medicines for Human Use Regulations prohibit offering financial or other incentives to children and families to participate in clinical trials.
In a separate charge against the company, a senior employee co-authored three articles promoting Moderna’s COVID-19 shot and posted tweets promoting the shot without disclosing that he worked for the company.
The employee co-authored one of the articles with Nadhim Zahawi, who was serving as the U.K.’s “vaccines minister.”
PMCPA said the article and tweets were advertising the vaccine and said the failure to inform readers that he worked for Moderna was “unacceptable,” according to The Telegraph.
The vaccine incentives and vaccine advertising amounted to 10 new breaches of industry code, requiring an audit to examine Moderna’s culture, governance and framework, PMCPA said.
When the audit concludes, the Appeal Board will consider whether the actions merit further sanctions.
Molly Kingsley, UsForThem founder, told The Telegraph:
“Many of the previous judgments against Moderna have revealed how readily it put profit ahead of the health and safety of children. Now it has also laid bare just how little regard it has had for the regulatory system that was supposed to keep it honest.
“Never before has a company so new to the pharmaceutical industry been rebuked in this way.”
Critics argue that the small fines aren’t enough to change the company’s behavior.
Esther McVey, a former member of the all-party parliamentary group on COVID-19 vaccine damage, told The Telegraph:
“The news that the PMCPA is taking the highly unusual step of ordering an audit of Moderna’s culture, governance and compliance framework is reputationally damaging, but it is incredible that the regulator has no real power to impose appropriate fines or other meaningful penalties which might make pharmaceutical companies think twice before breaking the rules.
“They know they can get away with it, and so they do; time and time again. It’s hardly surprising that public trust in the pharmaceutical industry and its regulators is through the floor.”
Moderna did not respond by deadline to The Defender’s request for comment.
Related articles in The Defender
Wow! $3 Grand, AYKM? Sadly, many parents would go for this. How despicable, desperate and yes pathetic!
I sure do hope Moderna is kicked-out of existence, never mind the UK.
What’s more disturbing is,
Moderna’s CEO Bancel said and I quote;
“When the virus was sequenced and put online by the Chinese government early in the pandemic, we had it in like 48 hours…..
We never had access to the physical virus to design the product”
Never had access? AYKM? So what did they actually use to design the “mRNA-Bioweapon?
I believe, these “mRNA-Bioweapons” were all ready to go! Pfizer and Moderna were the mules! “DoD-OWS”
The drug-Lord’s!
The entire Covid-Mind-Virus was a fraud! The JABS were ready and waiting for half the world’s population to roll over and roll up their sleeves, millions were murdered, millions more permanently disabled and still millions more may or may not wake up for work or school tomorrow! They’re walking time-bombs!
All that our “DoD” needed was a complicit President and MSM, to carry out their plan , their “Covid-Fraud!” We know they rest, or do we?
This is how insane and how irresponsible
Big-Pharma / MSM and yes I believe our beloved President and President our DoD are! Why?
Because at this point, our beloved President hasn’t said a word about how millions of people were “MURDERED” worldwide! Not a single word! That’s why!
Plus, he’s doubled-down on the mRNA-Bioweapon, when he allowed Larry Ellison to speak about how he can develop a cancer treatment in 48 hours using
“AI & mRNA!”
Again, AYKM?
This is why I am convinced our beloved president knew damn well 5 years ago, what “OWS” was all about, which he authorized! Which explains why he’s been “SILENT!”
Every last “rotten” one of them, all of these “Big-Pharma” and the rest of the cohorts are all guilty of MURDERING MILLIONS of people worldwide!!
Sadly, no one will be held accountable nor responsible!
They don’t give a flying “Rats-Poop” about human life! In fact, they’d rather people get deathly ill, border line dead, so they can experiment with other, non-health related Bioweapons!
God knows, they’ll
be another & another,
“Non-Pandemic” pandemic, right?
Of course there will be, they’ve already planned one, “can’t let a good crisis go to waste” now can they, Rahm Emanuel?
May God Bless America and The Entire World!
AJR
Killing them with money and teddy bears & untested vaccines because THE CHILDREN are the guinea pigs! Shame on their vile, selfish parents, even if they do need the money, for selling their children to be jabbed to death, sickness, or lifelong disability. And Maderna, may it self-destruct!