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Letter: Competing interests: More queries about H1N1 scandal (Aug 05, 2010 04:29 PM)

Why did it take so long to detect the trick uncovered by the BMJ and Bureau of Investigative Journalism’s inquiry?..

News: WHO swine flu review committee promises to probe links with drug industry (Jul 08, 2010 01:46 PM)

The chairman of the external expert review committee examining the World Health Organization’s management of the H1N1 pandemic said on 2 July that the panel will probe deeper into allegations that the drug industry may have unduly influenced key outcomes...

News: UK response to H1N1 pandemic was highly satisfactory, independent review says (Jul 06, 2010 11:56 AM)

The United Kingdom’s response to the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic, which cost £1.2bn (1.5bn; $1.8bn), was highly satisfactory and good value for money, concludes an independent review. But any purchasing for future pandemics should allow greater flexibility, it adds...

News: Italian auditor criticises contract for H1N1 vaccine (Jul 06, 2010 11:55 AM)

The contract between the drug firm Novartis and Italy’s health ministry over the purchase of 24 million doses of the H1N1 flu vaccine Focetria raises "many perplexities," a report from the Italian Court of Audit (Corte dei Conti) has said...

Letters: WHO and pandemic flu: What happened in Mexico (Jul 05, 2010 10:35 AM)

Another important issue for the World Health Organization’s declaration of the AH1N1 pandemic is how the original outbreak was managed in Mexico...

Letters: WHO and pandemic flu: GlaxoSmithKline UK responds (Jul 05, 2010 10:34 AM)

Cohen and Carter explore whether the World Health Organization should have taken advice from experts who had declarable financial and research ties with pharmaceutical companies producing antivirals and influenza vaccines, including GlaxoSmithKline (GSK)...

Letters: Response: WHO Director-General replies to the BMJ (Jul 05, 2010 10:30 AM)

In her editorial accompanying the feature on conflicts of interest at the World Health Organization,Godlee notes that it is "almost certainly true" that the mildness of the H1N1 pandemic, compared with the severity long expected from a virus like H5N1, has contributed to the current critical scrutiny of WHO’s decisions...

Letters: WHO and pandemic flu: Time for change, WHO (Jul 05, 2010 10:28 AM)

The World Health Organization has long term relationships with the pharmaceutical industry1 2 and even conceives of industry as a "partner"...

Letters: WHO and pandemic flu: There was also no new subtype (Jul 05, 2010 10:26 AM)

Cohen and Carter state that the World Health Organization changed the definition of an influenza pandemic by excluding reference to the words "with enormous numbers of deaths and illness"...

Letters: WHO and pandemic flu: Another question for GSK (Jul 05, 2010 10:23 AM)

The relation between the declaration of a pandemic and the activation of pandemic vaccine contracts came under considerable attention recently...

News: Telephone and internet surveys will improve estimates of flu incidence, experts say (Jun 29, 2010 12:10 PM)

Experts have admitted that accurate predictions of the incidence of the H1N1 flu pandemic in the United Kingdom proved a near impossible challenge...

News: A more severe flu pandemic is as inevitable as "death and taxes" (Jun 29, 2010 12:08 PM)

The next flu pandemic could be more severe than the H1N1 pandemic of 2009, health experts have warned...

News: WHO admits to "inconsistencies" in its policy on conflicts of interest (Jun 16, 2010 10:26 AM)

The World Health Organization has admitted that its policies governing the publication of conflicts of interests of its expert advisers have "inconsistencies" and that safeguards "surrounding engagements with industry" need to be tightened...

Views & Reviews: Personal View: The price of poor pandemic communication (Jun 10, 2010 02:02 PM)

Fuelled by public distrust, a season of inquiries has begun into how governments and public health agencies responded to the A/H1N1influenza pandemic. If these reviews are to be meaningful, they would do well to address the failures in communication both before and during the pandemic that helped create this public distrust...

Views & Reviews: Personal View: Preventing iatrogenic pandemics of panic. Do it in a NICE way (Jun 10, 2010 02:05 PM)

The decisions to stockpile antivirals and influenza vaccines to control avian flu (2005-6) and swine flu (2009) cost large amounts of money...

Letter: Child influenza vaccination: Ramifications of adverse events in children in Australia (Jun 10, 2010 02:00 PM)

Many serious adverse reactions to this year’s seasonal influenza vaccine have occurred across Australia, and its use remains suspended in children aged 5 years and under. Data released on 1 June 2010 show that 1 in every 110 young children vaccinated with the CSL vaccine had a febrile seizure...

News: Australian government says healthy under 5s should not be given seasonal flu jab (Jun 07, 2010 04:15 PM)

Australia’s health authorities have recommended that healthy children under 5 should not be given the seasonal flu jab, after preliminary research showed rates of febrile convulsions nine times higher than expected...

News: Council of Europe condemns "unjustified scare" over swine flu (Jun 07, 2010 04:12 PM)

The Council of Europe has heavily criticised the World Health Organization, national governments, and EU agencies for their handling of the swine flu pandemic...

Feature: Conflicts of Interest: WHO and the pandemic flu "conspiracies" (Jun 04, 2010 04:12 PM)

Key scientists advising the World Health Organization on planning for an influenza pandemic had done paid work for pharmaceutical firms that stood to gain from the guidance they were preparing. These conflicts of interest have never been publicly disclosed by WHO, and WHO has dismissed inquiries into its handling of the A/H1N1 pandemic as "conspiracy theories"...

Editorial: Conflicts of interest and pandemic flu (Jun 04, 2010 04:08 PM)

The world should of course be thankful that the 2009 influenza A/H1N1 pandemic proved such a damp squib. With so many fewer lives lost than had been predicted, it almost seems ungrateful to carp about the cost. But carp we must because the cost has been huge. Some countries—notably Poland—declined to join the panic buying of vaccines and antivirals triggered when the World Health Organization declared the pandemic a year ago this week. However, countries like France and the United Kingdom who have stockpiled drugs and vaccines are now busy unpicking vaccine contracts, selling unused vaccine to other countries, and sitting on huge piles of unused oseltamivir...

Research: Safety and immunogenicity of AS03B adjuvanted split virion versus non-adjuvanted whole virion H1N1 influenza vaccine in UK children aged 6 months-12 years: open label, randomised, parallel group, multicentre study (May 28, 2010 10:53 AM)

Objectives To compare the safety, reactogenicity, and immunogenicity of an adjuvanted split virion H1N1 vaccine and a non-adjuvanted whole virion vaccine used in the pandemic immunisation programme in the United Kingdom...

News: Swine flu pandemic review panel seeks access to confidential documents between WHO and drug companies (May 28, 2010 10:17 AM)

The chairman of the external expert review committee examining the World Health Organization’s management of the H1N1 pandemic said the panel wants access to confidential documents between the agency and drug companies...

News: Former Roche employee questions marketing of oseltamivir to businesses (May 28, 2010 10:38 AM)

A former employee of Roche has questioned the drug company’s sales practices for the antiviral drug oseltamivir (Tamiflu), as well as its efforts to maintain market share and tender for distributors for a broad range of products...

Research: Transmission of pandemic A/H1N1 2009 influenza on passenger aircraft: retrospective cohort study (May 24, 2010 02:40 PM)

Objectives To assess the risk of transmission of pandemic A/H1N1 2009 influenza (pandemic A/H1N1) from an infected high school group to other passengers on an airline flight and the effectiveness of screening and follow-up of exposed passengers...

News: Trusts forced to cut services because of costs of swine flu (May 14, 2010 02:20 PM)

Some primary care trusts have had to cut spending on their regular services because of the costs of the recent A/H1N1 flu pandemic, it has been shown. A Freedom of Information Act request by GP newspaper showed that the cost of dealing with the pandemic forced one in six trusts to cut other services...

News: GSK chief defends profits made on back of swine flu crisis (May 04, 2010 04:49 PM)

Andrew Witty, chief executive of global drug company GlaxoSmithKline, has denied accusations that the company profiteered during the swine flu crisis. Last year the company made a pre-tax profit of more than $13bn (£8.5bn; 9.8)...

News: New director of European disease centre defends its role in flu pandemic (May 04, 2010 04:47 PM)

Marc Sprenger, the new director of the Stockholm based European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC), has made it clear that he will not be pushing for the centre’s mandate to be extended to include non-communicable diseases...

News: Australia suspends seasonal flu vaccination of young children (May 04, 2010 04:44 PM)

Australia has extended a suspension of vaccination of children aged 5 years and under against seasonal flu, pending further investigations into an apparent spike in febrile convulsions associated with the vaccine...

News: Hospital stays for young adults with flu shot up in England in 2009 (Apr 28, 2010 04:48 PM)

Hospitalisation rates for young adults with influenza were 37 times higher in the autumn of 2009—when the H1N1 strain was predominant—than for the same period in the previous year, the latest figures for hospitals in England show...

News: External committee is to look at criticisms of WHO’s management of H1N1 pandemic (Apr 28, 2010 04:43 PM)

An evaluation of the World Health Organization’s management of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic will include an examination of the criticisms levelled at the agency, an interim report by an external expert review committee says...

News: Department of Health agrees deal with GSK to cancel part of swine flu vaccine order (Apr 15, 2010 02:34 PM)

The Department of Health in England announced that it has agreed with GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) to cap its order for the company’s swine flu (H1N1) vaccine, saving about one third of the value of the original order that it placed for enough vaccine to protect the entire UK population...

Blog: Tom Nolan: assessing the swine flu pandemic (Mar 26, 2010 04:38 PM)

GPs, politicians, journalists, and practice managers met for the Pandemic Summit at the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) last Thursday to share their experiences on surviving the swine flu pandemic...

News: Out of hours services would need to expand in more severe flu pandemic (Mar 22, 2010 04:41 PM)

A lack of capacity in out of hours services means that GPs in England would struggle to cope if a more severe wave of pandemic flu were to occur, speakers said at a pandemic summit at the Royal College of General Practitioners in London on 18 March...

Research: Critical illness due to 2009 A/H1N1 influenza in pregnant and postpartum women: population based cohort study (Mar 19, 2010 05:11 PM)

Pregnant women are at increased risk of influenza and its complications. The effects of influenza during pregnancy have been noted in previous pandemics, particularly the increased mortality in pregnant women compared with the general population...

Editorial: Critical illness as a result of influenza A/H1N1 infection in pregnancy (Mar 19, 2010 05:08 PM)

The 2009 pandemic influenza A/H1N1 virus has a predilection for the lower respiratory tract. In some cases, infection results in a pneumonitis and severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, which can be difficult to manage despite advanced ventilatory techniques...

News: Head of WHO’s vaccines advisory group defends its policy on competing interests (Mar 19, 2010 05:02 PM)

The chief who oversees the World Health Organization’s top advisory group on global vaccines has defended the oversight mechanism that guards against potential conflicts of interest among its members...

Observations: Body Politic: Why we went over the top in the swine flu battle (Feb 15, 2010 11:35 AM)

Once we had started to mobilise against H1N1, it was too late to turn back...

Letter: English mortality from A/H1N1: Comparisons with recent flu mortality (Feb 02, 2010 05:07 PM)

How do the number of deaths from pandemic A/H1N1 compare with influenza related mortality in recent years?...

Letter: English mortality from A/H1N1: Discrepancies in published data (Feb 02, 2010 05:09 PM)

A BBC report with which Sir Liam Donaldson1 was associated in September 2007 stated: "According to Department of Health figures, flu contributes to over 25 000 excess winter deaths every year and thousands of people are hospitalised due to serious complications..."

News: Council of Europe launches investigation into H1N1 pandemic (Feb 02, 2010 11:18 AM)

A Europe wide investigation will begin this week into the World Health Organization’s decision to label the outbreak of swine flu a "pandemic," amid allegations that it did so under pressure from drug companies looking to boost demand for their vaccines...

News: Use leftover Tamiflu to grit icy roads, MP suggests (Jan 26, 2010 12:32 PM)

An MP has said that unused supplies of oseltamivir (Tamiflu) pills left over from the swine flu pandemic that never quite happened in the United Kingdom could be used to grit icy roads...

Letter: A/H1N1 flu pandemic: Life threatening infections labelled swine flu (Jan 18, 2010 11:51 AM)

Algorithms for remote diagnosis and issue of antiviral drugs are indispensable during a pandemic. Their application through the National Pandemic Flu Service to both high and low prevalence areas is, however, controversial, and the lack of specificity in the use of the algorithm has been highlighted by Payne et al and at November’s meeting of the Federation of Infection Societies in Birmingham...

Letter: The truth about Tamiflu?: Neuraminidase inhibitors in pandemic A/H1N1 flu (Jan 18, 2010 11:45 AM)

Jefferson and colleagues describe the effectiveness of neuraminidase inhibitors in otherwise healthy adults infected with seasonal flu virus,1 but it is mainly the A/H1N1 flu virus that is currently in circulation...

Letter: The truth about Tamiflu?: Zanamivir should be inhaled, not nebulised (Jan 18, 2010 11:48 AM)

Jefferson and colleagues say that nebulisation is the route of administration for zanamivir.1 However, prescribers should be aware that the approved use of zanamivir in the United States and European Union is by inhalation, not nebulisation...

Letter: The truth about Tamiflu?: Data access is matter of trust (Jan 18, 2010 11:49 AM)

The UK Faculty of Public Health strongly supports the BMJ’s call for mandatory disclosure of raw data of all trials cited in drug licensing applications and marketing claims...

Editor's choice: H1N1 - now entering the recrimination phase (Jan 14, 2010 06:40 PM)

If influenza was a rock band how would it rate its latest release, H1N1? Not too well, I suspect, despite the greatest prepublicity since—well, its previous release ...

News: Government is in talks with GSK to offload surplus swine flu vaccine (Jan 11, 2010 04:56 PM)

The Department of Health in England is negotiating with GlaxoSmithKline over what can be done with millions of doses of swine flu vaccine it has ordered under contract from the company but that are now unlikely to be needed.

News: Politician accuses drug companies of overplaying dangers of H1N1 (Jan 12, 2010 06:12 PM)

Drug companies are being accused of unnecessarily raising fears over the H1N1 swine flu virus so as to increase profits by boosting sales of their new vaccines ...

News: WHO vaccine expert had conflict of interest, Danish newspaper claims (Jan 12, 2010 06:03 PM)

Controversy has arisen at the World Health Organization after allegations that some WHO experts, including a leading vaccine adviser, have financial ties to the drug industry ...

Letter: Fever as nature’s engine? (Jan 08, 2010 02:13 PM)

Data suggest that the use of paracetamol to reduce the body temperature and alleviate the symptoms of flu is counterproductive ...