More Notes from the WHO PIP IGM
Here we continue notes from the World Health Organization Pandemic Inflluenza Preparedness Intergovernmental Meeting. Refer to the previous post to read: Pretending You are In Charge (WHO), America Insults the Scientists of the Developing World - Or Is It About Patents?, and Japan's Big Bluffer.
US Shenanigans on Distributing Vaccine Seed Strain
Uncle Sam is up to something untoward when it comes to WHO's (pre)pandemic influenza vaccine seed strains. Immuncompetent doesn't know for sure what it is; but he's got a hunch. The issue is the language under discussion that would direct WHO Collaborating Centres to distribute influenza vaccine seed strain.
In addition to providing H5N1 vaccine seed strain to industry (which WHO CC's presently do), most countries want to make sure that the vaccine seed strain is also provided to national influenza centers around the globe or, at least, in the country of origin of the HA gene used in the seed strain.
Although the US professes to be in favor of this, it actually seems to have problems with sharing vaccine seed strains. To wit, it insists on inserting qualifying language into the paragraph (More)
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)
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.
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.