Anutin defends Siam Bioscience

In a report at the Bangkok Post, Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul is reported as “defending” the monarch’s Siam Bioscience. He is reported this way:

He rebuffed criticism made earlier by former Move Forward Party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit that the ministry’s vaccine policy put an undue amount of trust in Siam Bioscience, given that the company had never produced such a vaccine before…. The minister pointed out that Siam Bioscience received a licence to produce a viral-vector vaccine from the UK-based AstraZeneca company.

Clipped from The Rand Blog

As usual, though, there’s no data or information about Siam Bioscience. How much vaccine has it produced? How much was used in Thailand? How much was exported? How much taxpayer money was provided to the king’s company?

Does any reader know of such data?

What we do know is that in most countries, such political contention would be entirely normal. But not in Thailand. Thanathorn is hit with a lese majeste charge that could land him in prison for 15 years. “Protecting” the monarchy seems to also mean “protecting” the king’s companies. It helps that the law also “protects” the regime from criticism.