Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020
Has Moderna failed to disclose required information about funding for its COVID-19 vaccine?
A consumer watchdog group, Public Citizen, says Moderna Inc. has not met some disclosure requirements under its U.S. government contract to develop a coronavirus vaccine. It is asking the funding agency to enforce contractual requirements to disclose the level of non-government funding in the project.
Moderna acknowledges $955 million in federal support, but has not provided details about other funding sources. The company will receive an additional $1.525 billion for 100 million doses if the vaccine is effective.
Other unspecified support from government and nonprofit research institutions is acknowledged in a recent New England Journal of Medicine report on the trial, including money from a Vanderbilt University fund established by singer Dolly Parton.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
- Public Citizen: Letter to BARDA on enforcing Moderna disclosure requirements
- Google Drive: Moderna/BARDA vaccine trial contract
- Moderna: Update on COVID-19 vaccine trials
- New England Journal of Medicine: Preliminary report on an mRNA vaccine against SARS-CoV-2
- Washington Post: Dolly Parton helped fund Moderna’s vaccine
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Fact briefs are bite-sized, well-sourced explanations that offer clear "yes" or "no" answers to questions, confusions, and unsupported claims circulating online. They rely on publicly available data and documents, often from the original source. Fact briefs are written and published by Gigafact contributor publications.
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Between 2020 and 2022, under close editorial supervision, Gigafact contracted a group of freelance writers and editors to test the concepts for fact briefs and provide inputs to our software development process. We call this effort Gigafact Foundry. Over the course of these two years, Gigafact Foundry writers published over 1500 fact briefs in response to claims they found online. Their important work forms the basis of Gigafact formats and editorial guidelines, and is available to the public on Gigafact.org. Readers should be aware that while there is still a lot of relevant information to be found, not all fact briefs produced by Gigafact Foundry reflect Gigafact's current methods and standards for fact briefs. If you come across any that you feel are out of date and need to be looked at with fresh eyes, don't hesitate to contact us at support@gigafact.org.
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