Addressing concerns raised about potential conflicts of interest, the World Health Organization has disclosed the names of five of its advisers on the swine flu pandemic who received money from the drug industry, the AFP international news agency reports.
The WHO, however, said the five advisers’ financial ties with entities that stood to profit from vaccine sales did not amount to an actual conflict.
“It was felt after everything was brought out in the open that the specific nature of what they had done in terms of their consultancies did not constitute a conflict of interest,” WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told the Toronto Star.
Experts on the WHO’s 15-member H1N1 panel who disclosed financial ties to the industry included two Americans, two Britons and a Canadian. The Americans were Nancy Cox, who directs the Influenza Division of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; and Arnold Monto, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan. Cox researched flu vaccines for the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations, while Monto advised GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Roche, Baxter and Sanofi Pasteur on influenza research.
Two months ago, the panel came under fire when the British Medical Journal reported that three members received money from drug companies that stood to profit from vaccine sales.
An external review panel to the WHO continues to investigate accusations of undue industry influence and plans to release its report early next year.
The WHO had insisted that the names of its panelists — who were in charge of declaring “pandemic” status — be kept secret to protect them from being approached by pharmaceutical companies. The agency released the names following its announcement on Tuesday that the pandemic status was over.
Critics have said that the anonymity enabled drug companies to improperly influence the WHO and exaggerate the swine flu threat, especially after the Journal’s investigation and a Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly concluded that the WHO’s overestimate of the H1N1 threat resulted in a “waste of large sums of public money” and “unjustified scares and fears.”
Monto told Nature News that the controversy surrounding the panel taught that “if possible, full disclosure is the appropriate way to go.” But he also said it was unrealistic and counterproductive for flu experts to avoid all contact with drug companies.
“Do you want a situation where you have firewalls so that nobody can talk to anybody else, in a situation where we are dependent on industry to produce the vaccines that we need?” Monto told the Toronto Star. “I believe in a more nuanced approach, because that’s the way the world works.”
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