Flu Patent Claims: What planet do some people live on?
What planet do the people who claim that flu vaccines aren't patented live on? If they lived here on earth, then a quick search would tell them that there are numerous patent claims on H5N1 and other flu strains, frequently on viral sequences used in possible vaccines.
This morning I ran a quick a search on the World Intellectual Property Organization's PatentScope database for patent applications on (all) influenza vaccines. (Nerds: Int'l Class A61K 39/145.) The graphic above illustrates the result.
Material Transfer Agreement Hypocrisy
One of the things that's got a lot of the Cro-Mag Indonesia bashers up in arms is that Jakarta is asking the US (and other countries) to sign reasonable Material Transfer Agreements for influenza viruses, in the context of an unbiased WHO system.
Wow, how radical and anti-American. Not.
Quick Sketch of a New Global Virus Sharing System
Back when I ran the Sunshine Project, and with the help of Third World Network, I wrote a brief item describing how the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network could be reformed. We distributed this at a meeting of the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Intergovernmental Meeting (WHO PIP IGM). (Yes, it's a mouthful.)
The jist of the following nearly year-old article is still about right. I should have given more attention to sequence data, with the rapid rise of synthetic biology; but it's there in rudimentary form. Take a gander at this short piece if you want to know what some of us are thinking about for a New Global System.
A Glance at Current H5N1 Vaccine Trials
More than five dozen clinical trials for H5N1 vaccines have been registered in the US in recent years. A listing of trials (which includes many taking place outside the US) is available here.
Here is a quick review of many of those that are either ongoing or
preparing to recruit human subjects, emphasizing those that relate to
new biologicals (and less on studies primarily concerned with
adjuvants):
About Immunocompetent
I am weary of public health G.I. Joes (and Janes) and other obsessives and their threats that we're all gonna die of bird flu.
I am turned off by the callous and poorly reasoned bashing of foreigners that fills many flu blogs.
I believe that greed and poor governance in the US and EU plays a huge and underexplored role in the sad state of global readiness for a flu pandemic.
I am sure that national security and public health ought not to be mixed up in the way they have become.
Immunocompetent is a place for enlightened talk about Bird Flu, and where xenophobia and fearmongering are banned.
Here you will find fresh perspective about the serious problem of potentially pandemic influenza. You'll get information and analysis that you won't find blogged elsewhere, because this site doesn't just comment on the news, it aims to make it.
From 1999 to 2008 your host, Edward Hammond, directed the Sunshine Project, a nongovernmental organization focusing on biological weapons and biosafety. He first stuck his toe into influenza issues in 2003, when the Sunshine Project issued one of the first public warnings that US scientists were intending to recreate 1918 influenza. Since 2006 he has focused on H5N1 issues, specifically, questions of access and benefit sharing related to influenza viruses.