Exclusive: FOI Requests Reveal Millions Wasted On Unnecessary Covid Vaccines

Total tops 80,000,000 doses, estimates nearly half a billion pounds of taxpayer cash...

Documents I obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request reveal that the UK Government has discarded and donated over 80 million experimental COVID-19 vaccines since November 2020.

What follows is a simplified summary of two separate FOI requests responses from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA).

1st FOI Request

UKHSA disclosed that between November 2020 and August 21, 2023, it disposed of 732,060 COVID-19 vaccines. Despite their best efforts to manage “supply effectively”, the disposals were mainly due to products “reaching their expiry date”. The agency confessed that the total could be an underestimate as it excludes “wastage at NHS vaccination sites”.

According to The Office for National Statistics (ONS), 93.6% of the UK population is COVID vaccinated with at least one dose. There were hundreds if not thousands of vaccination sites stationed across the UK throughout 2020 to 2022.

Both the UK government and associated agencies, including UKHSA, have been reluctant to reveal the amount of taxpayer money spent on Covid vaccines. However, based on available data, the cost estimates per dose are approximately £20 for Pfizer/BioNTech, £19 for Moderna, and £3 for AstraZeneca.

Total Estimated Cost of Discarded Vaccines

Using these estimates, the total amount spent on discarded vaccines totals:

• Pfizer/BioNTech - 16,780 x £20 = £335,600

• Moderna - 5,000 x £19 = £95,000

• AstraZeneca - 710,280 x £3 = £2,130,840

Total estimated cost: £2,561,440

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2nd FOI Request

Several investigative journalists have noted significant vaccine wastage in other countries, particularly in Europe, which totalled millions. UKHSA’s numbers appeared conservative in comparison so I submitted a follow up FOI request about donations on 6th October 2023, wondering if the agency had not classified donations as a form of “wastage”.

Here was their response (emailed almost two months later):

Compared to 732,060 discarded, the government donated a whopping 80,416,069 doses internationally. Bangladesh, Indonesia, and Jamaica received the most at a million or above. The donation of the remaining 6 million doses went to various countries across Asia, North America, and Africa in varied lots. But these amounts paled compared to its donations to COVAX.

COVAX, otherwise known as COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access, is a global initiative designed to provide “equitable” access to COVID-19 vaccines. It is directed by three separate NGOs - coincidentally all Bill Gates-funded - including the GAVI Alliance, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and the World Health Organisation.

The government provided COVAX with 71,067,729 shots (paid for by British taxpayers) to distribute at their discretion, without oversight.

Notably, 59% of them came from AstraZeneca, which was the first vaccine regulators suspended as early as March 2021 because of blood clot reports. UKHSA chose to withhold the dates of the donations so it is impossible to know if they were donated after regulators suspended use of the AstraZeneca jab.

Total Estimated Cost of Donated Vaccines

From November 2020 to the end of 2022, using the same price estimates for discarded vaccines, the total amount spent on donated vaccines amounts to:

• Pfizer/BioNTech - 94,400 (direct donations) x £20 = £1,888,000

• AstraZeneca - 9,253,940 (direct donations) + 41,779,280 (COVAX donations) x £3 = £153,099,660

• Janssen - 20,001,600 x £6.50 = £130,010,400

• Unassigned/Unknown Maker - 9,286,849 x £12.13 (mean average cost of all vaccines) = £112,649,478

Total estimated cost: £397,647,538.

Total estimated donated vaccine cost (£397,647,538) + cost of discarded vaccines (£2,561,440): £400,208,978

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Put simply, if these modest calculations are correct, the government spent nearly half a billion pounds on COVID vaccines for the British public that they did not use.

Whilst UKHSA acknowledged in their response that transparency over government spending makes them more “open and accountable”, they admitted the commercial interests of the external companies involved overrides that of public interest.

Put differently, Big Pharma’s profitability seemingly takes precedent over the British public’s right to know how the government has spent their money.

The agency further justified their lack of transparency to assure they can get “the best value for money for the public purse” in future negotiations.

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*There were gaps in the Guardian’s reporting. The outlet only specified prices for a number of shots. Prices also varied between countries so I took a rough average in between the highest prices and lowest prices outlined.