WHO’s Flu Advisors Got Payments From Roche, Glaxo, Report Finds

June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Experts who received money from Roche Holding AG and GlaxoSmithKline Plc also served as consultants to the World Health Organization in drawing up plans for dealing with pandemic influenza, the British Medical Journal and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reported.

The flu expert who recommended using and stockpiling antiviral drugs received payments from Roche, which makes the best-selling antiviral Tamiflu, for lecturing and consulting work when the guidance was produced and published in 2004, according to the report published today in the BMJ. He had also received payments from Glaxo, maker of the second best-selling flu drug Relenza, until 2002, the article said.

European governments spent billions of dollars buying pandemic vaccines and antiviral drugs that went largely unused because the flu remained mild. The European Medicines Agency yesterday said three companies distributed more than 179 million doses of pandemic vaccine in Western Europe, of which at least a fifth was used. The article, which also found that two scientists who prepared annexes to the WHO’s 2004 pandemic guidelines had financial links to Roche, criticizes the lack of transparency of the agency’s expert consultations.

“The investigation reveals a system struggling to manage the inherent conflict between the pharmaceutical industry, WHO, and the global public health system, which all draw on the same pool of scientific experts,” the authors wrote.

‘Free of Undue Influence’

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