Why Canada should have known Big Tobacco ties would risk COVID-19 vaccine approval

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Canada should have known the World Health Organization likely wouldn't accept Medicago's COVID-19 vaccine over its close ties with tobacco giant Philip Morris — before deciding to invest millions of dollars of taxpayer money in the company.

The WHO told CBC News on March 25 the biopharmaceutical firm's request for emergency use authorization of its Covifenz vaccine had "not been accepted" due to the company's "linkage with the tobacco industry" and was now "on hold."

Marlboro cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris International owns 21 per cent of Medicago shares and the WHO reiterated it has long had a "strict policy" on "not engaging with companies that promote tobacco" and that Medicago had been informed of the decision.

That leaves Medicago's vaccine in limbo, after the federal government gave the company $173 million in 2020 to develop the vaccine, build a new production facility and purchase 20 million doses with an option for 56 million more. 

Canada has approved the vaccine and is expected to distribute it next month, but it's the only country so far and use of the shot worldwide would be severely hampered without WHO approval.

"Medicago now has to face the consequences of their choice," said Dr. Gaston De Serres, a medical epidemiologist at the Quebec National Institute of Public Health (INSPQ). 

"It's not something they overlooked. It's a decision they took understanding its implications, understanding this would come with big problems when dealing with WHO." 

De Serres said the problems Medicago would have had in getting a COVID-19 vaccine with close ties to the tobacco industry approved by the WHO were "quite obvious," and that the federal government "should have known" this issue would arise before investing in it. 

"They wouldn't have to work hard to know that Philip Morris was also an important shareholder," he said. 

"And WHO I think is fully entitled to say tobacco is the largest preventable cause of premature death and we don't want to have anything to do with the tobacco industry." 

Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been over six million confirmed deaths from COVID-19 worldwide. The WHO estimates tobacco kills more than eight million people each year.

Medicago produces its vaccine with the plant species Nicotiana benthamiana, a close relative of the tobacco plant that is used for pharmaceutical development — largely because of the high number of viruses that can successfully infect it. 

But the WHO's policy on Big Tobacco is no secret, and Canada signed the legally binding WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control in 2005 committing to "protect" public health policies "from the commercial and other vested interests of the tobacco industry."