CDC Statutorily Prohibited from Being a WHO Collaborating Center?
The Centers for Disease Control has a World Health Organization Collaborating Center (WHO CC) for influenza, but it may be unable to fulfill its duty to WHO because US domestic law prevents it from adequately sharing influenza viruses. The law is US export control legislation, and it requires that labs, including CDC, obtain a license from the Department of Commerce before sharing a number of disease agents. (More)
Are CDC's PR Hacks Lying about Patent Claims?
If secondary sources are to be believed, such as this one, then CDC's PR hacks have sallied forth with a pack of lies about their patent claims on Indonesian, Thai, and other H5N1 genes, which were first brought into the public eye by this blog.
There are two main arguments that CDC has been quoted to me as making with respect to my article and related items that have come out in the press. I will refute both of CDC's claims. (More)
CDC lays claim to Indonesian (and other) Flu Genes
It would be hard to be more "in your face" than what the US National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control are doing with patent claims to their new H5N1 DNA vaccine.
But right there on the front page it's laid out in black and white:
VIRUS IS NOW THE PROPERTY OF UNCLE SAM.
Well, it doesn't literally say that; but this graphic appears:
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.