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Moderna in Trouble in UK for Offering Kids Money and Teddy Bears to Participate in COVID Vaccine Trials

By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | April 28, 2025

Pharma giant Moderna faces suspension or expulsion from a U.K. trade group for breaking several industry rules, including offering children teddy bears and large payments to participate in COVID-19 trials, The Telegraph reported.

The vaccine maker is facing an audit by the Prescription Medicines Code of Practice Authority (PMCPA), an independent, self-regulatory body established by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry, which it joined in 2023.

In a ruling expected to be made public in the coming days, the company was found to have committed several violations of industry rules, including misleading the regulator about when it became aware that financial incentives were being offered to children.

If sanctioned, Moderna will be only the tenth company in 40 years to be suspended from the PMCPA, according to The Telegraph.

The PMCPA said the company’s practices were “unacceptable” and damaged the industry’s reputation.

In October 2024, the regulator fined Moderna 14,000 pounds ($18,788) after the Children’s Covid Vaccine Advisory Council submitted a complaint about “inappropriate financial inducement” offered to children and their parents to participate in the vaccine maker’s clinical trial for COVID-19 vaccines.

The complaint criticized Moderna for initially offering children’s families 1,505 pounds ($2,020) to participate in its NextCOVE clinical trial, testing Moderna’s mRNA vaccine in children ages 12 and up.

The council cited concerns raised by the research ethics committee that approved the clinical study, which said the payment offered, “placed the children at risk of coercion.” The organization required that Moderna reduce the offer before recruitment could begin.

Moderna reduced the amount to 185 pounds ($248), yet at least one clinical trial site continued to offer the high payments.

Moderna claimed it took action as soon as it was notified about the continued high cash offer in January 2024. However, new evidence shows that the U.K. children’s health advocacy group UsForThem informed senior executives of the issue in August 2023, but Moderna took no action.

In February of this year, the company was ordered to pay nearly 44,000 pounds ($59,049) after 12-year-olds were offered a teddy bear to join the same trials. Advertisements aimed at children told them, “All our junior volunteers get a lovely certificate and a ‘be part of the research’ teddy bear.” At least two online articles also directly target children.

The U.K.’s Medicines for Human Use Regulations prohibit offering financial or other incentives to children and families to participate in clinical trials.

In a separate charge against the company, a senior employee co-authored three articles promoting Moderna’s COVID-19 shot and posted tweets promoting the shot without disclosing that he worked for the company.

The employee co-authored one of the articles with Nadhim Zahawi, who was serving as the U.K.’s “vaccines minister.”

PMCPA said the article and tweets were advertising the vaccine and said the failure to inform readers that he worked for Moderna was “unacceptable,” according to The Telegraph.

The vaccine incentives and vaccine advertising amounted to 10 new breaches of industry code, requiring an audit to examine Moderna’s culture, governance and framework, PMCPA said.

When the audit concludes, the Appeal Board will consider whether the actions merit further sanctions.

Molly Kingsley, UsForThem founder, told The Telegraph :

“Many of the previous judgments against Moderna have revealed how readily it put profit ahead of the health and safety of children. Now it has also laid bare just how little regard it has had for the regulatory system that was supposed to keep it honest.

“Never before has a company so new to the pharmaceutical industry been rebuked in this way.”

Critics argue that the small fines aren’t enough to change the company’s behavior.

Esther McVey, a former member of the all-party parliamentary group on COVID-19 vaccine damage, told The Telegraph :

“The news that the PMCPA is taking the highly unusual step of ordering an audit of Moderna’s culture, governance and compliance framework is reputationally damaging, but it is incredible that the regulator has no real power to impose appropriate fines or other meaningful penalties which might make pharmaceutical companies think twice before breaking the rules.

“They know they can get away with it, and so they do; time and time again. It’s hardly surprising that public trust in the pharmaceutical industry and its regulators is through the floor.”

Moderna did not respond by deadline to The Defender’s request for comment.

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

April 28, 2025 - Posted by aletho | Deception | UK