Sanofi Releases a Deadly Vaccine
Sanofi Pasteur is the vaccines division of the French multinational pharmaceutical company Sanofi. In April of 2016, Sanofi Pasteur released a new vaccine for the disease
Dengue called Dengvaxia. Dengue, also known as “Break Bone Fever”, is a
mosquito born viral infection that affects more than 400 million people and
kills 250,000 people in tropical and sub-tropical climates world wide each
year. The virus has multiple symptoms such as pain behind the eyes, joint pain,
and other flu like symptoms. Dengue has four strains: Dengue 1, Dengue 2,
Dengue 3, and Dengue 4 which is also known as Severe Dengue. If strain one is
left untreated, it has the potential of developing into Severe Dengue and
causing hemorrhage or death. Before Dengvaxia existed, there was no licensed vaccine for Dengue.
One of the countries that purchased the
Dengue vaccine was the Philippines. The Philippine government mandated that
830,000 school children get the vaccination. Once the vaccination process was
well underway, some of the children began to fall very ill and ended up dying. Because
of these deaths, the vaccinations were immediately suspended and the Philippine
government reported it back to Sanofi. Once the reports of the deaths reached
Sanofi, they then released a side effect of Dengvaxia that was previously not
made public. The side effect was that if an individual were to receive the
vaccination with no prior exposure to the Dengue virus and then later on came
in contact with it, they would be at an elevated risk of developing one of the
more severe strains of the disease. Sanofi failed to release this information
before it released the actual vaccine. When this information was made public
worldwide, Dengvaxia was banned for sale, distribution and imports from there
on out.
The Philippine government was furious at Sanofi for withholding the
information from them until after they had already begun their vaccinations. In
response to the situation, the Philippine government called on Sanofi for a
refund of 3.5 billion Philippine pesos, which is about the equivalent of 69
million U.S. dollars. The government also called on Sanofi to set up a fund to
cover the treatment of any child who developed Severe Dengue as a result of
getting the vaccine. Sanofi did not give assistance to any of the families that
were affected by what had happened or any families whose children developed
Severe Dengue after the fact. Sanofi also never gave the Philippine government
the money they asked for as a refund for the vaccines.
The people of the Philippines felt as
though they were taken advantage of and used with no remorse as to what could
happen. Leovon Duneyro, a father whose youngest son was given the vaccine at
his school, claims that Sanofi knew about the risks all along. “We weren’t told
it was not safe… they made my son and other students as their guinea pigs,”
said Duneyro. He also made some accusations that Sanofi could have possibly
conspired with corrupt Philippine officials to circumvent regulations, but
Sanofi denied all these claims.
In this case there are several stakeholders. They include Sanofi Pasteur, pharmaceutical companies, the Philippine government and the country as a whole, the families of the children vaccinated along with the children themselves, and other people withe Dengue around the world. Sanofi Pasteur is the biggest stakeholder because their reputation on
all aspects is now ruined. They will be known for sending out a vaccine that
clearly was not ready to be used and killing innocent schoolchildren in the
process. On a pharmaceutical level, companies that would normally purchase
vaccines from Sanofi might now find another company to buy from since they may
believe that the vaccines they are purchasing might not be as safe as Sanofi
claims they are. The Philippine government is also affected in this situation
because it is there people who were injected with a vaccine that they purchased
and mandated. Another stakeholder in this case would be all the families of the
children vaccinated and they children themselves. Those children were given a
vaccine in confidence that it would help protect them and it ended up doing the
exact opposite, it made everything worse. The final stakeholder in this case is the
people in other parts of the world that have Dengue. These people witnessed
what happened in the Philippines and now if a new vaccine ever does surface,
they will always have this disaster lurking in the back of their minds.
This specific case will be analyzed using four ethical theories. The first theory used is individualism. Individualism focuses on maximizing profit as much as possible as long
as the law permits it. Within individualism there are two different
perspectives: Milton Freidman’s and Tibor Machan’s. Freidman’s view states that
there is only one goal of a business and it is to generate as much profit as
possible for its owners and stockholders. Friedman says that something is wrong
if it does not fall within the law or “within the rules of the game”. Tibor Machan shared the same view when it came to maximizing profits; he
believed that maximizing profits was by far the most important thing however a
business can have other goals that are not exactly aimed at profits. In both of these perspectives, the main goal is to maximize the profit while still abiding by the law. When applied to the Saonfi case, these perspectives say that what Sanofi did was not right. They were trying to maximize profit, but they did not do it within the
law. Sanofi released a vaccine that had severely detrimental side effects to
solely maximize their profits. They knew that because Dengue is such a popular
disease, countries would be willing to pay a lot of money to get their citizens
a vaccine that would protect them. Sanofi advertised that this vaccine would do
that, but it did the opposite.
The second ethical theory used to analyse the case is Utilitarianism. Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that’s
main goal is to maximize happiness in yourself, others and all other conscious
beings. According to utilitarianism one must choose the action among
alternatives that gives the best consequences for all in the present and the
future. The reasoning behind this is that if happiness is valuable, there is no
difference morally speaking between one’s own happiness and others. Happiness
or pleasure are the only two things in utilitarianism of intrinsic value. If a utilitarian were to
analyze this case, they would have several problems with it. To start, Sanofi
failed to fully disclose how dangerous the vaccine could be. They were putting
their own profit before the happiness and well-being of people all over the
world. They knew that there could be detrimental consequences if someone who
had never been exposed to Dengue got vaccinated, but they didn’t say anything
because they wanted to profit by selling the vaccine. Even when they did get
the chance to make things right and bring some happiness into the families’ who
were affected lives, they denied their opportunities. Sanofi believed that if
they helped the families who suffered in the situation, they would be admitting
that they did something wrong, and they did not believe that they were in the
wrong.
Kantianism is the third ethical theory that is being used to analyze this case. Kantianism is all about giving people what they need in order to make
their own rational decisions, nothing should be hidden from or influencing
someone making a decision. The Formula of Humanity states that people should treat other people as
equals, never treat someone as if you are superior. It restates Kant’s main
ideas about treating people with respect and giving all the information needed
to make decisions when decisions need to be made. A Kantian would not agree with what Sanofi did. Sanofi hid a crucial
piece of information that would have drastically changed the decision-making
process of the Philippine government when they were deciding whether or not
they wanted to purchase the vaccine. They hindered the decision-making process
which according to Kant is morally wrong. Sanofi also did not treat the people
of world suffering from Dengue the way they would have wanted to be treated.
They used the people of the Philippines with the disease as lab rats and used
them to maximize their own profits. If the Sanofi officials were the ones with
a possibly life-threatening disease, they would have wanted people who were
working their very hardest to find a cure, not people who were working their
hardest to earn a bigger pay check.
The final theory that is being used is called the virtue theory. The four main virtues within the virtue
theory are courage, honesty, temperance/self-control, and justice/fairness.
Aristotle believed that in order for someone to be virtuous and have a virtuous
filled life, they must have a rational sense of mind. This rationality will
help them function in their everyday lives well and if something achieves their
function that thing is said to be happy. When looking at Sanofi from the perspective
of a virtue theorist, they did not follow any of the core virtues. Starting
with courage, Sanofi did not have any at all. They were given countless
opportunities to own up to what they did and make it right, but they denied all
of those chances. Sanofi refused to provide assistance to the families that
suffered through their mistake because they did not have the courage to own up
to the fact that they did in fact make a mistake. They released a drug without
fully disclosing its side effects and that was wrong. The next virtue that
Sanofi broke was honesty. They failed to be truthful about how dangerous their
vaccine could be to a person who had never been exposed to the disease
beforehand. Sanofi lied to everyone they sold Dengvaxia to because they said it
was a safe vaccine when it was not. Once they released how dangerous the
vaccine was, they lied again by not admitting to the fact that they did
anything wrong. The third virtue that was broken by Sanofi was regarding
temperance and self-control. Sanofi had the chance to tell the world the truth
about the vaccine before they released it for sales, but if they did that they
would not have been able to release it and thus they would have lost a lot of
money. They did not have the self-control needed to do the right thing; instead
they gave in and did the thing that would maximize their profit. The final
virtue in the virtue theory that was broken by Sanofi was regarding justice and
fairness. By not giving the public all the information they needed to make proper,
rational, decisions, Sanofi was being unfair. They were clearly only thinking
about benefiting the company and not taking into consideration that people
lives were on the line. Overall, Sanofi broke every main virtue in virtue
theory which means that a virtue theorist would consider what they did to be
unethical.
After analyzing the case thoroughly, it is
clear to me that what Sanofi did was extremely unethical. What Sanofi did
should never have been done by any company and should never be done by any
company again. They deliberately hid an important piece of information about
one of the side effects of the vaccine Dengvaxia. The side effect was that if
the vaccine was given to an individual who had never been exposed to the
disease Dengue and was then later exposed to the disease post vaccination, they
would be more likely to develop the severe strain of the disease which could
lead to death. Sanofi did this because they saw an opportunity to maximize
their profit; they didn’t take a step back and think about the consequences of
their actions. What Sanofi did was selfish, disrespectful, and overall very
unethical.
After the
recent backlash from the public about the Dengvaxia scandal, a good idea to
help the company bounce back would be to reinvent the company, starting by
changing their mission statement. Currently, Sanofi’s mission statement is
as follows: “Our mission. Protecting and improving
human health worldwide is our main mission.
We have to serve an active role by providing superior, innovative vaccines for
the prevention and treatment of disease and by playing an active role in the
immunization community to maximize vaccination”. Their new mission statement
should find a way to incorporate their mistake to make sure nothing like it
ever occurs again. An example of what their mission statement could be is as
follows: “Our mission. Protecting, improving, and informing the public about
human health worldwide is our main mission. We have to serve an active role by
providing honest, superior, fully tested, and innovative vaccines and
information about our vaccines for the prevention and treatment of disease and
by playing an active role in the immunization community to ensure that the
vaccination information is correct and fully provided to everyone we service,”.
This new mission statement touches on every aspect of what Sanofi should be
trying to emphasize that they are, honest, superior, caring, and concerned with
the diseases people battle around the world daily.
Along with instating a new mission statement,
Sanofi should reevaluate their core values. Some ideas for new core values
could be honesty, customer safety, and selflessness. Honesty should be a core
value because after everything that happened, Sanofi is going to need to regain
their customers’ respect. They lied about a crucial piece of information
regarding a vaccine’s side effects thus regaining their customers trust should
be a number one priority. The willingness of their remaining customers to purchase
new vaccines from them will be slim so it is important that Sanofi starts
working towards that honesty. Customer safety should be another value because
of how many of their recent customers in the Philippines were hurt or killed.
Even if the people of the Philippines didn’t directly buy the vaccine from
Sanofi, they were still recipients of something that Sanofi created thus making
them their customers. Having customer safety be a core value will remind the officials
working that the first priority should always be the customer, never themselves.
The third core value that Sanofi should instate would be selflessness. During
the recent case with Dengvaxia, Sanofi was pinned as a selfish company that only
thought of themselves and ignored the well being of its customers. Adding selflessness
to the list of things to work on would show the world that they are trying to change
for the better and they do in fact realize that what they did was wrong.
In
order to prove to the public that the company is trying its best to better
itself, drastic changes should be made. To start, the company should let go of
any executive employees that had majors roles in the decision to put the
vaccine Dengvaxia on the market. Once all problematic employees are gone, new
ones should be hired. In the hiring process there should be an ethical examination
to ensure that these new employees won’t fall into the same traps that the old
ones did. Next, all employees that were lucky enough to keep their jobs should
have to go through the same ethical examination. If they do not meet the
standards set but higher executives, there place in the company will be taken
away. These ethics examinations should be made a regular thing that employees must
pass; this will be a constant reminder to all employees to make sure that they
are doing the right thing. While all this is going on, the marketing department
should be publicizing these new advances to prove to the pubic that they are
doing everything in their power to fix what is broken within their company. The
marketing department should also focus in on Sanofi’s new mission and their
core values.
If all of these things do occur and have the
hoped outcome, Sanofi should be able to correct their poor image. The marketing
will be a crucial part in the whole situation because they are really going to
have to emphasize that the company is trying to reinvent itself. Once the company’s
image starts to get fixed, profits will start to increase. The plan solely focuses
on bettering the company and improving their image and making sure that a disaster
like the Dengvaxia incident never happens again.
Gabrielle Delos
References:
Caliwan, Christopher Lloyd. “Dengvaxia Caused Deaths of Vaccinated Children: PAO Chief.” Philippine News Agency
Caliwan, Christopher Lloyd. “Dengvaxia Caused Deaths of Vaccinated Children: PAO Chief.” Philippine News Agency
RSS,Philippine News Agency, 6 June 2018, www.pna.gov.ph/articles/1037745
“Dengue and Severe Dengue.” World
Health Organization, World Health Organization, 13 Sept.
2018,
www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/dengue-and-severe-dengue.
Grady, Denise, and Katie Thomas. “Drug
Company Under Fire After Revealing Dengue
Vaccine
May Harm Some.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 17 Dec.
2017,
www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/health/sanofi-dengue-vaccine-philippines.html.
“Mosquito.” Kids' Games, Animals,
Photos, Stories, and More, 1 Mar. 2014,
kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals/mosquito/#mosquito-closeup.jpg.
“We, at Sanofi, Are There beside People in
Need, as a Health Journey Partner.” Sanofi, a Global
Biopharmaceutical
Company Focused on Human Health - Sanofi, Sanofi Pasteur , 2004,
www.sanofi.com/en/about-us.
Salazar, Heather. The Business
Ethics Case Manual: The Authoritative Step-by-Step Guide to
Understanding
and Improving the Ethics of Any Business. Utilitarianism and Business
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