International health panel tied to swine flu drug companies

Once again the World Health Organization, the international health arm of the United Nations, is being accused of coziness with the drug companies that manufacture the swine flu vaccine while simultaneously urging governments to stockpile the medications. A new report released Friday gives specifics: It says three experts from the international health panel who drafted the vaccine acquisition guidelines had received consulting fees from two leading manufacturers of antiviral drugs used against the virus, Roche and GlaxoSmithKline. The drug companies earned more than $7-billion after the WHO's vaccine guidelines were issued, according to the report, a joint effort of BMJ, a prominent British medical journal, and the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

Earlier this year the WHO the found itself accused of exaggerating the swine flu threat in order to enrich the pockets of the drug companies that manufacture the vaccine. Accusers claimed that the international health panel, by rashly declaring a pandemic of swine flu and urging governments to stockpile the vaccine, had actually "squandered tight health care resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side effects of insufficiently tested vaccines." The WHO defended itself, saying the unknowns surrounding the swine flu and its strength warranted the pandemic declaration.

The new report goes beyond vague accusations and spells out the financial relationships between individual members of the international health panel and the particular drug companies. The international health panel reiterated its defense on Friday: "The idea that we declared a pandemic when there wasn't a pandemic is both historically inaccurate and downright irresponsible," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told the Washington Post. "There is no doubt that this was a pandemic. To insinuate that this was not a pandemic is very disrespectful to the people who died from it."

In testimony earlier this year before the Council of Europe, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's Special Adviser on Pandemic Influenza, said by the time the WHO announced the pandemic, the swine flu had spread with "unprecedented speed," reaching 120 countries and territories in about eight weeks. The virus caused "a striking and unusual pattern of severe illnesses and deaths in younger people," and had already shown evidence of person-to-person spread. Fukuda acknowledged that "cooperation with a range of partners, including the private sector, is essential" for meeting global public health challenges, but said the international health panel was equipped to manage conflicts of interest.

Hartl, the spokesman for the international health organization, agreed Friday: "We know that some experts that come to our committees have contact with industry. It would be surprising if they didn't because the best experts are sought by all organizations." He told the Post that, nonetheless, the vaccine guidelines had not been influenced by the drug industry. Do you believe him?

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