At the height of the pandemic, big pharma tried to censor Global Justice Now activists’ tweets

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Hi John,
This week we found out that, at the height of the pandemic in December 2020, big pharma tried to censor Global Justice Now activists’ tweets, asking Twitter to hide your demands to break up their deadly vaccine monopolies.

A report from The Intercept found that BioNTech, the small company behind Pfizer’s extremely profitable Covid-19 vaccine, contacted Twitter to pressure them into hiding activists’ tweets calling for generic Covid vaccines to be produced.(1) The German government is also reported to have contacted Twitter on BioNTech’s behalf.

Big pharma has been caught red-handed trying to use fear of vaccine misinformation to censor public campaigning which threatened their profits. Will you join us now in sending a clear message to these companies that we’re not backing down?


** Tell BioNTech we’re not backing down
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This shady business coincided with the first People’s Vaccine global day of action, just weeks after the first successful Covid-19 vaccines were announced. Together we highlighted the injustice of vaccine inequality and called for pharma companies to share their vaccine recipes with the global south.

While we were campaigning to make sure everyone could get a vaccine, no matter where they lived, big pharma was employing these sinister and deeply undemocratic tactics to maintain its lucrative monopolies.

We now know that 600,000 people in low- and middle-income countries died unnecessary deaths in 2021 alone because vaccines doses were not shared equitably. (2)

BioNTech has gone on to make £16.7 billion in 2021, with astonishing profit margins of 54%. This was after the company received over €500 million in public funding.

The idea that big pharma would exploit the real crisis of online disinformation around vaccines to censor our movement’s criticisms of vaccine monopolies is deeply concerning.

As companies like BioNTech look to entrench their monopoly control over mRNA technology, and vaccines for cancer, HIV and other diseases, we must stand up to their dirty tactics. If big pharma wants to shut us up, it’s a sign that they’re rattled. And we won’t keep quiet: we’ll shout louder.

Can you share our message to big pharma now?
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** Stand up to BioNTech
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This isn’t just about one company. We know that the pharma lobby has spent millions lobbying to prevent action that would allow countries in the global south from taking control of their own medicines. The entire system is rotten.

That’s why we will continue to take a stand against big pharma in 2023. It’s we, the public, that pay for the most important pharmaceutical developments. It is public scientists that do the bulk of the work. We demand a new system.

Together we must show BioNTech and the rest of the big pharma lobby that we’re going nowhere.

Thank you for all your support,
Tim Bierley
Campaigner at Global Justice Now

More info

1. Covid-19 Drugmakers Pressured Twitter to Censor Activists Pushing for Generic Vaccine ([link removed]) , The Intercept, 16 January 2023

2. G7 vaccines failures contribute to 600,000 preventable deaths ([link removed]) , People's Vaccine Alliance, 25 June 2022
** Together we can build a system that puts people’s health over profits.
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Every year 100 million people sink below the poverty line because of the extortionate prices big pharma companies charge for their medications.

Can you join as a member today and help build a better system and put medicines in the hands of the global south, not big pharma?

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