Excerpt from Wikipedia : In 2009, Roselyne Bachelot French minister for health back then [ordered 94 million vaccines from Sanofi Pasteur, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis and Baxter International for the French Government at a cost of 869 million euros (and an option on 34 million additional vaccines in 2010) to fight against the H1N1 influenza virus; however, less than 10% of French population (about 6 million people) had been vaccinated by the end of the winter. She later canceled over half the flu vaccines ordered to combat the virus, in an effort to head off criticism after reserving too many shots.]

This lady was pulled in the dirt for so long for this. This episode was politically exploited, she was deemed falling for pharmaceutical lobbying, being paid on the side for ordering that many vaccines. Only in 2020 she was praised for her action.

Excerpt from Wikipedia in french : [Retrospectively, her action was judged appropriate during COVID-19 crisis, when France ran out of Masks]

Every once in a wile I get baffled by how american justice system is broken, lacks common sense and cannot be reformed. Aren't the judge able to spot such abusive and predatory patent trolls that attacks only small and weak companies that have no means to defend themselves? Here where I live each time I discuss US justice system I get reminded of this probably false story of the woman that sued and won against a microwave company because they didn't state in the manual that you cant dry your pet in the microwave, and killed her dog or whatever. Such inhuman system rewards just stupidity and greed.

Comments URL: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30909393

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Link (in french) gives more details than the free excerpt published in ParisMatch website teasing an exclusive lengthy investigation in their weekly magazine

(Google-translated)

"Foolish internal jealousies, a series of maneuvers and a series of clumsiness would have ended up annihilating the work of researchers. This is why Pasteur is silent"

"Witnesses recount rather surprising facts. One morning, for example, a researcher realizes that the mice on which the pretests are carried out have disappeared. It is therefore necessary to bring in new mice and restart the testing phase, which slows down the process.

Nicolas Escriou ends up officially joining the project management team. According to certain accounts, reported by Paris Match, he then posits "as a true commander-in-chief of the ongoing research, ostensibly eyeing his superior, going so far as to suggest that he had better bow". Frédéric Tangy, visibly annoyed, then understands that the Pasteur Institute supports the competition opposed by his rival, younger and therefore less close to retirement. A competition which according to him can only be counterproductive.

The rivalry between Nicolas Escriou and Frédéric Tangy becomes so strong that it slows down the development of the vaccine candidate. Weakened by internal maneuvers, the joint project ends up imploding. The two men then go it alone again. In April 2020, Pasteur is forced to make a choice: the results of Nicolas Escriou's vaccine candidate are more promising for the Institute. It is therefore he who is now piloting the V591 project. But in January 2021, Merck throws in the towel. An abandonment which was experienced as a failure for the whole country and which has raised questions about the performance of French research, which has still not succeeded in developing its own vaccine against Covid-19."