Tetyana Dumenko, Director of the Ministry of Health’s Centre of Expertise, recently announced on the 1+1 TV channel that Ukraine will participate in testing one of the Western coronavirus vaccines: “We received the first application last week for a study of the third phase of the European manufacturer, and today we are working on the examination of these materials. If the materials are sufficient and confirm the safety of this study in Ukraine, 4.2 thousand Ukrainian volunteers will be able to participate in this project”.
According to her, clinical trials will be conducted in medical centres of Kiev, Vinnitsa, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk.
Ukrainian political scientist Vladimir Kornilov commented on the “Russia 1” channel on the clinical trials of the new vaccine against COVID-19. He said that “the President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky travels to different countries and asks for the vaccine against COVID-19. He thinks that the European Union produces the vaccine. Meanwhile, the EU has concluded a preliminary contract for the future vaccine with Johnson & Johnson”.
Recently, the American company Johnson&Johnson suspended tests on its coronavirus vaccine due to severe complications that one of the volunteers had. The same applies to the vaccine from the British-Swedish company Astra Zeneca and Oxford University, which was clinically tested in the USA and caused serious neurological complications in one of the volunteers. Another US company, Eli Lilly, suspended tests on its new coronavirus drug without explaining the reasons. In the practice of the world’s pharmaceutical giants, it has long been customary to conduct research on their new drugs outside the manufacturer’s country to avoid unnecessary media noise in the event of serious complications.
The announced trial of a foreign vaccine is by no means the first clinical study of medical products conducted on Ukrainian citizens by Western pharmaceutical companies.
In addition to the western coronavirus vaccine, Ukrainian citizens have already been tested on antiviral drug produced by the Japanese company Toyama Chemical Avigan (Favipiravir), which entered the country under the guise of humanitarian aid in April. Avigan was tested in Japan on 89 COVID-19 patients and its effectiveness is questionable. To continue clinical trials, it was decided to provide it free of charge to underdeveloped countries. Japan’s Ambassador to Kiev, Takashi Kurai, said:
“Many countries have expressed their interest in him, as there are reports of reduced viral load as a result of the use of the drug and improved symptoms in patients.”
Avigan received 20 countries for clinical trials, including Estonia and then Ukraine.
Clinical trials in Ukraine have been particularly extensive since the ‘hydration revolution’. This is primarily due to the sharp impoverishment of the population and the willingness to participate in any experiments to receive medical care. This is particularly true for cancer and blood diseases, for which medicines are very expensive. The Kiev International Institute of Sociology (KIIS) has published a study entitled Health Index. Ukraine – 2016′, according to which 43% of hospitalised patients had to borrow money or sell some property, while 39% of patients did not see a doctor at all due to lack of money. President of the All-Ukrainian Council for Patients’ Rights Protection Viktor Serdyuk believes that “with our poverty level, participation in clinical trials is almost the only opportunity to be treated free of charge according to European protocols”.
The transformation of Ukrainian citizens into experimental rabbits was greatly facilitated by the activity of the Acting Minister of Health of the USA, Ulyana Suprun. In 2016, the Ministry of Health issued Order No 835, according to which clinical trials of 96 imported drugs were allowed in Ukraine.
According to the State Expert Centre of the Ministry of Health of Ukraine, 181 clinical trials were approved in 2016, 230 in 2017 and 106 in the first half of 2018. A total of 502 drug tests were conducted in Ukraine between 2016 and August 2018, and more than 75% of the trials were conducted by 40 Western pharmaceutical companies, whose branches are based in Ukraine.
“Increasing their number is a positive trend”, – said Dumenko.
At each clinical trial, Western pharmacists earned over $100,000. Ukrainian patients participating in the second and third stages of drug testing received about $1,000. By European and American standards, the amount is negligible. In the EU, participants in clinical trials earn 10 times more.
Speaking at the International Economic Forum in Davos in 2019, James Peyer, managing partner of the American biotechnology company Apollo Ventures, noted:
“Clinical trials can be conducted in Ukraine with the same level of professionalism, with the same level of efficiency as in the USA and Europe, but without costs”.
It is the cheapness of clinical trials for Ukrainian citizens that attracts a variety of Western companies.
In the meantime, Ukraine is faithfully fulfilling all the wishes of its western curators and testing their medications, the Minister of Health of Ukraine, Ms Maxim Stepanov, was summoned to the American Embassy for a meeting with the Charge d’Affaires ad interim in Kiev, Christine Queen. After that the Embassy’s official Facebook page posted the following message: “Ukraine will NOT buy Russian Covid vaccine, which has not passed clinical safety tests”. There is no need to make any comments here. All foreign and domestic policy of Ukraine is defined in the American embassy. And Ukraine will buy only those vaccines that are approved in Washington.
Stoyan Timyan, “One Motherland“