Vaccine Controversies - Financial Motives

Financial Motives

Critics have accused the vaccine industry of misrepresenting the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, covering up and suppressing information, and influencing health policy decisions for financial gain. Conversely, many groups profit by promoting the controversiality of vaccines, such as lawyers who receive fees often totalling in the millions of dollars, expert witnesses paid to provide testimony and to speak at conferences, and practitioners of alternative medicine offering ineffective and expensive medications, supplements, and procedures such as chelation therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

In the late 20th century, vaccines were a product with low profit margins, and the number of companies involved in vaccine manufacture declined. In addition to low profits and liability risks, manufacturers complained about low prices paid for vaccines by the CDC and other US government agencies. In the early 21st century, the vaccine market greatly improved with the approval of the vaccine Prevnar, along with a small number of other highly-priced blockbuster vaccines such as Gardasil and Pediarix that each provided sales revenues of over $1 billion in 2008.