WHO Responds to BMJ Report - Medical News

Note: see prior posting regarding criticisms of WHO (June 2010)

"Financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry did not play a role in the declaration and handling of the H1N1 influenza pandemic, said Margaret Chan, MD, MPH, secretary-general of the World Health Organization.
"At no time, not for one second, did commercial interests enter my decision-making," she wrote in a letter to the editors of the BMJ, which published a report last week detailing undisclosed conflicts of interest among researchers advising the WHO.
The implication of the report was that these ties to industry may have influenced some of the guidance the advisers were giving to the WHO.
"Without question, the BMJ feature and editorial will leave many readers with the impression that WHO's decision to declare a pandemic was at least partially influenced by a desire to boost the profits of the pharmaceutical industry," Chan wrote. "The bottom line, however, is that decisions to raise the level of pandemic alert were based on clearly defined virological and epidemiological criteria. It is hard to bend these criteria, no matter what the motive."
Although Chan disagreed with any implication of untoward influence from industry, she agreed that difficult questions about conflicts of interest are warranted...."