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Comment by LightG | Hacker News Reader

Dumb and blind comment: could the discarded doses not be shipped to countries who don't have enough? Or is there even the demand for it any more?

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First of all expired things are rarely dangerous and useless. Some medicines becomes less effective. A rare few transmute into something that could be harmful. There was a huge study by the department of defence on many drugs, since they stockpile them and it's expensive to throw them out when they expire if it's not necessary. It's mostly an exercise in covering-your-ass by the drug companies. But regardless, I doubt countries would appreciate receiving expired drugs anyway, even if they could be safely used.

The second thing is, couldn't it have anticipated that this was going to happen and give them away sooner? That seems like typical government incompetence.

I remember taking a video[1] of the government in Panama crushing thousands of cans of expired coke and other sodas under a forklift, hopefully so they could recycle the aluminum. If they had anticipated that, they could have sold them.

[1] The video is terrible, it has somehow been formatted sideways and it was taken on a blackberry back when that was hot tech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgFSclNkxig

> The second thing is, couldn't it have anticipated that this was going to happen and give them away sooner? That seems like typical government incompetence.

AIUI, everyone who has surplus AZ has been trying, for a while. There's not all that much demand, as various countries are also trying to shift mRNA vaccines that are about to expire, and the mRNA ones are generally preferable, particularly post-Omicron. Covid vaccine access has become more a problem of distribution than supply.

"of the already acquired supply, it gave some 44 million doses to other countries free of charge. The remaining doses have been thrown out."

Right in the first sentence:"Japan has discarded some 13.5 million doses of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine as all of the remaining shots supplied by the British pharmaceutical company have expired"

So no, you just can't ship the expired doses away.

Well, you have projected demand and current supply. At some point you ask, "Do we need all these?" If the answer is no, you ship them out.

How many times (in the USA) did public health officials (e.g., Fauci) and the media drum on about the dangers of new variants and how that is the world's problem? Yet, time and again we see actions that run directly counter to that narrative. If it's not negligence than it's intentional. Neither is acceptable.

We all know the rule: Actions speak louder than words.

Did you read the article? They did in fact 'ship out' 44 million doses, much more than they discarded.

Globally there's tons of production capacity for Astrazeneca and not much demand for it, the vast majority of people who want it, have already got it.

Yes. I read the article.

This isn't the first time or place this has happened. Multiple govs went over the top, pushed a oh-the-variants narrative, and then trashed millions of taxpayer dollars.

Again. If it's not intentional it's negligence.

Not sure whether those countries would appreciate the gesture. I've seen Africans complain about AstraZeneca "donations" as follows: rich countries only give us the junk they themselves don't want because it's too dangerous.

Or mostly vaccine that's 2 weeks to expiry.

I assume there were not many interested to get the shots. Maybe they were ineffective for the latest strains too.

As all the other vaccines presently.

Except the latest bivalent Moderna and Pfizer shots, not yet bought by many governments.

The older Moderna / Pfizer shots also prevent deaths and serious hospitalizations, if that's what you're worried about.

It's not what I'm worried about.

The article says that they were expired. Using expired vaccines sounds very very risky to me.

The article also says that previously a lot of unexpired doses were given to other countries.

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