Moderna has been fined after using teddy bears to entice children as young as 12 into participating in COVID-19 vaccine trials without parental knowledge or consent—an unethical tactic that critics call “deeply sinister.”
The scandal stems from disturbing recruitment ads published by Bradford Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust in 2023, which openly targeted 12-year-olds instead of their parents.
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The ads shamelessly promised young participants a certificate and a teddy bear—a transparent attempt to lure impressionable children into an unnecessary and ethically bankrupt clinical trial.
Critics were swift to condemn the ploy. Molly Kingsley, founder of UsForThem, didn’t hold back:
“For any pharmaceutical company to effectively bribe children with the offer of free teddy bears to take part in a trial of a product posing a degree of risk to the child is sinister and deeply unsavoury behaviour.”
By the time of the NextCOVE trial, it was already well established that healthy children faced minimal risk from COVID-19—making the very premise of these trials redundant.
In fact, under The Medicines for Human Use (Clinical Trials) Regulations, companies are explicitly banned from offering incentives or financial inducements to children in clinical trials. Yet Moderna ignored these safeguards in their relentless push to test their latest product.
MP Esther McVey, a former member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on COVID-19 vaccine damage, called out the pharmaceutical industry’s disgraceful conduct:
“This shocking behaviour sets a new low for the pharmaceutical industry. Their punishment was a fine of just £44,000 – pocket change to a company of this size.”
And she’s right. Moderna, a company that has raked in billions from its COVID-19 gene therapy injections, walks away with a measly fine—a cost so insignificant it barely qualifies as a warning.
Meanwhile, trust in the pharmaceutical industry continues to erode as yet another scandal proves that, for these corporations, ethics take a back seat to profits.