Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) |
"Four of the medical experts advising the Government on whether the new meningitis C vaccine is safe have links to one or more of the drug companies that produce it......Professor Janet Darbyshire, a member of the Government's Committee on Safety of Medicines, had received support for academic research from US firms Wyeth and Chiron, who produce the two main meningitis products being used on children in Britain....three members of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation had declared interests in vaccine manufacturers...Dr David Goldblatt of the Institute of Child Health, has served on an expert advisory panel for Wyeth and received research grants from Wyeth and North American Vaccines, which produces a third meningitis C drug to be introduced this year. Another, Professor Keith Cartwright of the University of Bristol, received funding from the drug industry to 'evaluate candidate meningicoccal vaccines'. "--Martin Bright and Tracy McVeigh, Sunday Observer, UK September 3, 2000
Tedd Koren, D.C., quoted Barbara Fisher, who served 10 years on the National Vaccine Advisory Committee trying to reform the health care system herself, as revealing more than presidential election lobby monies: ‘We have bad science and bad medicine translated into law to ensure that vaccine manufacturers make big profits, that career bureaucrats at the Public Health Service meet the mass vaccination goals promised to politicians funding their budgets, and pediatricians have a steady flow of patients...As the drug companies have often stated in meetings I have attended, if a vaccine they produce is not mandated to be used on a mass basis, they do not recoup their R & D costs and don’t make the profit they want...official studies of vaccine risk have been designed and conducted by physicians who sit on vaccine policy-making committees at the Centers for Disease Control...some of whom receive money from vaccine manufacturers for their universities and for testifying as expert witnesses in vaccine-injury cases. And others are federal employees with an eye on career advancement within HHS and a future job with a vaccine manufacturer after retirement from public service" (Well Mind Association October 1993).
"The Committee’s investigation has determined that conflict of interest rules employed by the FDA and the CDC have been weak, enforcement has been lax, and committee members with substantial ties to pharmaceutical companies have been given waivers to participate in committee proceedings."--Committee staff report
"5 out of 6 members of the (UK) Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation had interests with Glaxo Wellcome, 4 with SmithKline Beecham (ref: May 1999 Secretary of State for Health)