Notes from the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Intergovernmental Meeting
Here are some notes, updated when I feel so moved, from the resumed WHO Pandemic Preparedness Intergovernmental Meeting (WHO PIP IGM). This is the continuation of previous WHO PIP IGM meetings on the topic that is commonly understood to the be the conflict between Indonesia and the US over virus sharing, but which in fact is broader and much more complicated. The meeting reopened on Monday, 8 December and will last until this Friday or Saturday.
This is not a comprehensive report. It's a collection of thoughts about issues, particularly when they are amenable to being dealt with discreetly. A more comprehensive piece will, hopefully, follow.
The mini blog posts here here are:
Pretending You are In Charge (WHO)
America Insults the Scientists of the Developing World - Or Is It About Patents?
Japan's Big Bluffer
Pretending You are In Charge (WHO)
To any careful observer of the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network it is clear that labs in the powerful countries - like the US, Japan, UK, and Australia - just do whatever they want with H5N1 samples and call it a WHO activity. They are "WHO labs" in name only. (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)
WHO, the Pentagon, and Influenza Collections
A flu article recently written for SUNS...
US military flu virus collection parallels WHO virus system
Bogota, 26 Nov (Edward Hammond*) -- A large and rapidly growing global US military virus collection system parallels the World Health Organization's Global Influenza Surveillance Network (WHO GISN) but does not entirely share its public health purposes.
The US military system is a source of viruses for the WHO GISN; but it does not give most of its virus collections to WHO. It does keep all the lab specimens and viruses it collects for its own use.
Wider knowledge of the extent of the US military virus collection system and its ambiguous relationship to the WHO GISN system will raise important questions for the WHO Pandemic Influenza Preparedness Inter-Governmental Meeting (PIP IGM), which will convene in Geneva the second week of December. (More)
Gene Squatters Claim the Next Pandemic
If you think oil speculators are an ethically-challenged crowd, consider pandemic squatters. There are many examples. For one of the ugliest and most audacious, we turn to Finland.
Finns are usually an inoffensive lot, but it seems that a few of their number are hoping for the big one to come. A big pandemic, that is. And they're putting their money on H5N2. Helsinki-based Remedal, a tiny company with no apparent independent R&D capacity, has filed for patent on basically all injected or intranasal human vaccines containing an H5 and an N2 antigen (i.e. against H5N1 recombined with 'normal' human H3N2).
For good measure, Remedal further specifically claims such a vaccine using three HA genes that are WHO GISN materials: A/Hong Kong/213/2003, A/Vietnam/1194/2004, and A/Vietnam/1203/2004. (More)
Draft H5N1 Virus Sharing Text Wikileaked
A draft text of the WHO Intergovernmental Meeting on Pandemic Influenza Preparedness (PIP IGM) has cropped up on Wikileaks, and Geneva, we have got some problems. The 17 page negotiating document was issued on June 29th. It was written by Jane Halton, the PIP IGM Chair from Australia, in an effort to reconcile differing ideas put forward by countries for reform of the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN).
At least it's supposed to have reconciled ideas. Sadly, the text looks
far more like what certain developed countries the pharmaceutical industry wants than a good faith
effort to bridge gaps and present options. I guess some pigs are more
equal than others at WHO. Egregiously, the text moves full-bore ahead
with the insidious securitization of public health, making multiple
references to "public health security", a national security / defense
concept, that screws up WHO left and right.
Your bloghost will offer more commentary soon, but in the interim here's a detailed news article about the text written by Sangeeta Shashikant of Third World Network:
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.