Fw: Vaccine Advisers Linked to Drug Firms

March 3, 2001

From: ilena rose <ilena@...>

Sent: Monday, February 26, 2001 11:17 PM

Subject: Vaccine Advisers Linked to Drug Firms

> Vaccine Advisers Linked to Drug Firms

>

> times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2001/01/28/stinwenws02012.html

>

> One-third of the members of a UK government committee that has

> advised that the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella is safe

> have financial interests in drug companies that make the treatment,

> writes Rosie Waterhouse.

> Twelve of the 36 members of the Committee on Safety of Medicines

> have financial links with the MMR manufacturers, whose products they

> have given the all-clear on the basis of published research. Most

> members are academics or medical experts who specialise in pharmacology.

> Five of them hold shares in the drug companies, or are paid

> consultants, while another seven have received grants or sponsorship

> from them to fund academic studies or clinical trials.

> All members declare their financial interests in a register and

> before meetings. The chairman then decides whether they can participate

> in discussions.

> Campaigners against the MMR vaccine, who fear it causes autism or

> bowel disease in children, claim the financial links between drug

> watchdogs and the pharmaceutical industry could lead to a conflict of

> interest.

> One lobby group, Jabs, is to write to Alan Milburn, the health

> secretary, asking for an investigation into the potential conflict of

> interest. Last week , from Hayle, Cornwall, said she would

> take legal action after claiming that five of her six children had

> developed autism after their MMR injections.

> While the government and most of the medical establishment argue

> that the vaccine is safe, research by Dr Wakefield, of the Royal

> Free hospital, London, claimed the trials leading to the MMR vaccine's

> adoption in Britain were too brief to detect the feared complications.

> In an interview in The Sunday Times today, Liam son, the

> government's chief medical officer, defends the government's refusal to

> endorse separate injections in place of the MMR vaccine.

>

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