Lawmakers Sever Ties Between CDC And Big Pharma

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In fact, according to UPI, the CDC itself is in the vaccine business. Under a 1980 law, UPI found the CDC had 28 licensing agreements with drug companies and one university for vaccines or vaccine-related products and eight ongoing projects to collaborate on new vaccines.

For instance, the CDC and SmithKline Beecham worked together on the Lyme-disease vaccine. A 1992 CDC activity report, obtained by UPI, says the agency had an agreement "with SmithKline Beecham that currently funds three positions at (the CDC) for the purpose of providing information of use in developing advanced test methods and vaccine candidates."

In June 2001, the General Accounting Office delivered a report on the issue to Senator Chris Dodd, (D-Conn), that noted that CDC employees "are listed on two Lyme-disease related patents" including "a 1993 joint patent between CDC and SmithKline Beecham Corporation." The report also said that six of 12 consultants working for the CDC on Lyme vaccines "reported at least one interest related to a vaccine firm."

According to CDC meeting transcripts where the committee weighed its recommendation, 3 had conflicts of interest with SmithKlineBeecham. The LYMERIX lyme-disease vaccine was approved by the CDC on February 18, 1999, and by October of 2000, more than 1.4 million people had received the vaccine.

But 18 months later, according to UPI, in February 2002, SmithKline Beecham pulled the vaccine off the market claiming that sales of LYMERIX were insufficient to justify the continued investment. However, according to UPI, the company also faced hundreds of lawsuits by people who said they suffered side effects from the vaccines.

The government's database at the time, listed possible side effects from LYMERIX as 640 emergency room visits, 34 life-threatening reactions, 77 hospitalizations, 198 disabilities and six deaths after people took the shots since the CDC endorsed it, according to UPI.

UPI also found other cases where vaccines endorsed by the panel were pulled off the market after a number of people suffered devastating side effects, and some died.

Congressman Dan Burton, (R-Ind), had already been investigating the advisory panel for several years, and told UPI that the conflicts of interest were a major problem. "This presents a real paradox," he said, "when the CDC routinely allows scientists with blatant conflicts of interest to serve on influential advisory committees that make recommendations on new vaccines, as well as policy matters."

"All the while these same scientists," Representative Burton said, "have financial ties, academic affiliations, and other vested interests in the products and companies for which they are supposed to be providing unbiased oversight."

An August 2001 report on the investigation by Rep Burton's House Government Reform Committee, stated that "four out of eight CDC advisory committee members who voted to approve guidelines for the rotavirus vaccine in June 1998 had financial ties to pharmaceutical companies that were developing different versions of the vaccine."

Critic say the conflicts of interest of Dr Paul Offit while sitting on the advisory panel could not be more blatant. He was part of the team that mandated the use of the RotaVirus vaccine, even though he received a $350,000 grant from Merck to develop the vaccine, shared the patent, and was paid to go around the country teaching doctors that vaccines were safe, according to the Wall Street Journal.

UPI discovered that Merck also had bought and distributed copies of a book written by Dr Offit titled, "What Every Parent Should Know About Vaccines," to physicians with a Dear Doctor letter that stated:"Merck Vaccine Division is pleased to present you with a copy of the recent publication, 'What Every Parent Should Know About Vaccines.'"

"The authors designed the book," Merck's letter told doctors, "to answer questions parents have about vaccines and to dispel misinformation about vaccines that sometimes appears in the public media."

The book had a list price of $14.95, and Dr Offit told UPI that he did not know how many copies Merck had purchased.

In 2001, Congressman Burton's investigation also found conflicts of interest with the then chairman of the advisory panel, Dr John Modlin, a Professor at Dartmouth Medical School, who owned $26,000 worth of Merck stock.

In a phone interview in 2003, Dr Modlin told UPI that he had sold the Merck stock, but that he had recently agreed to chair a committee to oversee Merck vaccine clinical trials.

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