flu: it is precise, it was all done very swollen ... Taken from here
flu: new charges against the WHO
criticism on how the World Health Organization (WHO) has responded to the pandemic Influenza is mounted a notch, Friday, June 4, with the coordinated publication of a joint investigation by the British Medical
Journal (BMJ) and the Office of Investigative Journalism in London and the report adopted on the same day by the health commission of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe.
The first revealed that some of the experts involved in drafting the guidelines of the WHO pandemic influenza have received compensation from pharmaceutical companies - Roche and GlaxoSmithKline - involved in the manufacture of drugs or vaccines against influenza viruses.
The second highlights a "lack of transparency" in management
the H1N1 crisis by WHO and public health institutions, accusing them
"squandered a portion of the confidence that the European public has in these highly reputable organizations "and believes that " this decline in confidence may pose a risk in the future "
.
A year after the announcement, May 11, 2009, by Margaret Chan
the beginning of the pandemic influenza, many Western governments find themselves with stockpiles of antiviral drugs unexpended and vaccines against new influenza A (H1N1), commanded a high price, while at the same time, the bank JP Morgan estimates that sales of pandemic vaccines have reported between 7 and 10 billion dollars (5.8 to 8.3 billion euros) in the laboratory.
It appears that since 1999, when a document contained the first guidelines of the WHO plan for pandemic influenza, experts play a key role in developing the strategy of the international institution in this area have interesting links with industry. The recommendations were written by four experts in collaboration with the European Scientific Working Group on Influenza (ESWI in its English version). "What this document does not reveal is that the ESWI is entirely funded by Roche and other vaccine manufacturers. Nor does it indicate que
(deux des experts, le second étant à l'époque employé de l'OMS) avaient participé à des événements financés par Roche l'année précédente, selon les documents de marketing consultés par le BMJ et le Bureau"
, écrivent les journalistes britanniques Deborah Cohen
et Philip Carter . L'article cite différents autres experts ayant participé à l'élaboration de documents stratégiques de l'OMS sur une pandémie grippale, parmi lesquels les professeurs Karl Nicholson
(université de Leicester), Albert Osterhaus
(université Erasme, Rotterdam) ou Frederick Hayden (université de Virginie), qui ont été rétribués par les industriels et ont publié des articles à l'appui de l'intérêt des médicaments antiviraux (le Tamiflu de Roche ou le Relenza de GlaxoSmith Kline), intérêt aujourd'hui contesté au sein de la communauté médicale.
"Aucune déclaration d'intérêt n'a été publiée et aucun détail n'a été fourni par l'OMS en réponse à nos demandes" , indiquent Deborah Cohen et Philip Carter, qui signalent que plusieurs expert witnesses claimed to have declared their interest links.
The two journalists also deplore the secrecy maintained by WHO on the composition of the emergency committee, established by its director general and has recommended to decide when to declare a pandemic. "A decision that triggered the pre-cost contracts on vaccines throughout the world"
, commented in its editorial director of writing BMJ, Fiona Godlee . Questioned by Le Monde , spokesman of WHO, Gregory Hartl states that "whenever it brings together experts, WHO makes them complete a declaration of interest which is subject to the discretion of the President's Committee of Experts, but not published because they contain many of private information. "
Regarding the emergency committee, Mr. Hartl said that his composition will be made public upon completion of his mission, a measure aimed "to ensure that its members are under pressure, given the enormous consequences of decisions taken ". The argument did not convince the BMJ and wondering Office if this would imply that other committees of WHO, whose composition is public are subject to these influences. The report written by Paul Flynn , British parliamentary socialism, and adopted Friday, June 4 by the health commission of the Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe, also accuses the international institution to demonstrate to a "serious lack of transparency" in its decision process, coupled "the overwhelming evidence that the severity of the pandemic has been grossly overestimated by the WHO"
. The document stresses that "it principalement le passage rapide de l'OMS vers le niveau 6 de la pandémie, à un moment où la grippe donnait des symptômes relativement modérés, combinés au changement de définition des niveaux de pandémie juste avant l'annonce de la pandémie H1N1, qui a soulevé des préoccupations et des soupçons de la part de la communauté scientifique."
Le rapport sera soumis à l'Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l'Europe et ses 47 Etats membres le 24 juin. Paul Benkimoun
