Chan Denies Pharma Influence As WHO Review Proceeds
Published on 28 September 2010 @ 7:46 pm
Intellectual Property Watch
“Never did I see a shred of evidence that financial profits for industry, as opposed to epidemiological and virological data, influenced WHO decisions” on a recent H1N1, or “swine flu” pandemic, World Health Organization Director General Margaret Chan said in opening remarks to the International Health Regulations Review Committee.
She promised to make available all the WHO’s records of its work during the pandemic.
“To some, response measures now look excessive compared with the moderate impact of the pandemic,” but had the “virus turned more lethal, we would be under scrutiny for having failed to protect large numbers of people,” Chan said. She added that vaccine supplies had come “too little, too late” and that much of the developing world had been left “almost entirely unprotected.”
“I personally do not believe that WHO exaggerated the threat,” she said.
The IHR Review Committee is meeting from 27-29 September to continue a review process begun in March to evaluate its efforts during the recent pandemic. The last meeting of the IHR was in July (IPW, WHO, 7 July 2010). Since then, the pandemic has been declared over and for the first time the names of the members of the WHO emergency committee which declared the pandemic have been released (IPW, WHO, 10 August 2010), showing some of the members had ties to industry.
Those most critical of the WHO’s behaviour during the pandemic had decried the WHO’s hiding of these names, saying it could have concealed conflicts of interest in its decision-making process. WHO argued that keeping the experts secret protected them from outside influence.
The full text of Chan’s prepared remarks is available here.
Categories: IP-Watch Briefs, News, English
29 September 2010 at 12:14 am
[...] Chan denies pharma influence as WHO review proceeds (IP Watch) [...]
29 September 2010 at 9:09 am
Like the drunk who looks for his keys where the light is better instead of where he dropped it, this ‘review’ ignores the real issues:
1) Why did WHO donate ‘free’ virus biodiversity from developing countries to its Collaborating Centres who either patented derivatives or passed them on to commercial entities IN VIOLATION OF ITS OWN GUIDELINES?
2) Why did WHO along with OIE and WTO issue a statement protecting the pork industry (saying eating pork is safe) when the reason for declaring the pandemic was that this plastic virus can mutate into something much more dangerous/contagious. Funny how WHO specialists think that non-specialists somehow cannot pick out the contradictions – elementary my dear Watson. Its even funnier that the WHO hardly makes such a clear statement on WTO legality of compulsory licenses for HIV/AIDS, yet feels free to make comments on WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary Standards, in which the WTO ‘court’ has found countries can define their own level of risk tolerance…
Poor Chan, running an agency that is funded 80% by non-budgetary monies while rich countries hold the purse strings … pay the piper call the tune… But in sympathy with Chan, not even the Council of Europe gets it right… in their inquiry also (for all the hot air), the real issues were sidelined. Its absolutely no use even telling them to look where the keys were dropped instead of where the light is better…
And for the World’s leading health agency, after years of talks to not have a deal to ensure access to medicines/vaccines for deadly pandemics can make you wonder if the Hippocratic Oath is still applicable…
And thanks to WHO, the world is as unprepared as ever for a pandemic, especially because the importance of not crying wolf seems to have been forgotten in all this defensive posturing…
29 March 2011 at 5:53 pm
[...] September, Chan denied any pharmaceutical industry influence in the WHO response to the pandemic (IPW, Public Health, 28 September 2010). Related Articles:Committee Examines Undue Influence, Coordination In WHO Pandemic Flu [...]