Swiss should reveal more about Covid vaccine contracts, says commissioner

Lobsiger published six recommendations after receiving ten requests for arbitration following the partially redacted publication of the vaccine contracts. © Keystone / Alessandro Della Valle

The Federal Office of Public Health 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 exceptional reasons put forward by the public health office and the vaccine companies were not presented “with the depth of reasoning required by case law”.

It therefore recommended that the public health office grant access to the procurement contracts between the federal government and companies such as Pfizer and Moderna “to a large extent”. The current status of the authorisation of the vaccines by Swissmedic should be taken into account.

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Lobsiger published 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 public health office if they do not agree with Lobsiger’s recommendations. According to Lobsiger, the public health office can issue such an order ex officio.

Freedom of information act

In the years 2020 to 2022, several people requested access to the government’s procurement contracts for Covid-19 vaccines on the basis of the Federal Freedom of Information actExternal link. According to the documents published on Monday, these included lawyers, media representatives and private individuals.

It is known, for example, that a lawyer wanted to find out how much the vaccines have cost so far and how much money has been budgeted for them in the future. A cantonal Swiss People’s Party parliamentarian from Ticino also demanded to see the documents.

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The requests for access were made on the basis of the Federal Freedom of Information Act, according to which anyone can request access to federal administration documents. In certain exceptional cases, publication of the documents can be refused, only partially granted or even postponed.

Last year, the journalist research network investigativ.ch awarded public health office director Anne Lévy the dubious “information blocker” award (Der Goldene Bremsklotz) over the partial redaction of the vaccine contracts. The media professionals argued that the public needed accurate information in order to trust the authorities in difficult times such as the pandemic.

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