[Ip-health] GSK, WHO, a patient group and USD 10,000

[Judit Rius Sanjuan]

>From E-DRUG: GSK, WHO, a patient group and USD 10,000
------------------------------------------------
[This BMJ article was picked up by the Guardian. Copied as fair use. WB]

http://society.guardian.co.uk/print/0,,329717730-105965,00.html

The World Health Organisation, the drugs company and the $10,000 funding
offer
=B7 Patients' group 'was asked to act as covert channel'
=B7 UN body denies attempt to bend donation rules

Michael Day and Sarah Boseley
Friday February 16, 2007
Guardian

The World Health Organisation is facing allegations that it attempted to se=
cure a $10,000 (=A35,100) donation from a drugs company by asking a
patients' group to act as a covert channel for the funds, in the light of d=
ocuments published today. The alleged arrangement would have broken the
WHO's own rules on accepting money from the pharmaceutical industry.

Emails between Benedetto Saraceno, the WHO's director of mental health and =
substance abuse, and the European Parkinson's Disease Association appear to
suggest that the WHO was willing to take $10,000 from Britain's biggest dru=
g company, GlaxoSmithKline, to help pay for the preparation of a report on
neurological disorders, for which GSK makes drugs.

However, Dr Saraceno made it clear that the money must pass through the cof=
fers of the EPDA first because of the rules on WHO accepting drug industry =
funding.

"Unfortunately WHO cannot receive funds from the pharmaceutical industry," =
he wrote to Mary Baker of the EPDA in June 2006.

"Our legal office will reject the donation. WHO can only receive funds from=
 government agencies, NGOs, foundations and scientific institutions or
professional organisations. Therefore I suggest that this money should be g=
iven to EPDA and eventually EPDA can send the funds to WHO which will give
an invoice (and acknowledge contribution) to EPDA, but not to GSK."

He added: "This is in line with what we have done so far with other contrib=
utions to the report which are all coming from other professional organisat=
ions."

The email exchange, detailed in today's British Medical Journal, is likely =
to reignite the debate over the extent of the reliance on pharmaceutical
funding by health organisations. A part of the United Nations, the WHO has =
long suffered from underfunding and never has enough money for the wide
range of services that it provides. The WHO produces guidelines on all kind=
s of health issues across the globe.

In this case, GSK appears to have been appalled at the lack of transparency=
 on the part of the WHO and withdrew its offer.

In June 2006 Alastair Benbow, a vice president of the company, wrote to Ms =
Baker: "Unless I am misreading something here it sounds like they [the WHO]
will accept funding from you but not from the industry. Worse than this, th=
ey will accept funding from you even if they know it originally came from
us in order to bypass their own rules. This is hypocritical in the extreme.=
 It makes a complete mockery of attempts at transparency, which should be
welcome and which the WHO have called for."

Dr Saraceno strongly denies that he was suggesting breaking the rules. He c=
laims that his email to Ms Baker was "clumsily worded" and that he had
"never intended to solicit donations from the pharmaceutical industry throu=
gh the patient organisation".

After Dr Saraceno was shown Dr Benbow's email, he sent a further one to her=
 in which he attempted to explain his position, saying that he had never
asked her organisation to raise funds from the pharmaceutical industry and =
stating that he would prefer to decline the $10,000 "in order to avoid a
perception of conflict of interests for WHO".

A spokesman for the WHO said: "It's astonishing that the BMJ thinks there's=
 a story here. Dr Saraceno sent a second email saying that he had not meant
to ask for money. So I don't think there's anything to answer."

Ms Baker, however, had a different perspective on events. "There is absolut=
ely no doubt in my mind that Dr Saraceno knew the $10,000 was coming from G=
SK and that he was intending to disguise its origins by getting the EPDA to=
 accept it first before passing it on."

---


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--
Judit Rius Sanjuan
Attorney
judit.rius@keionline.org

Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
www.cptech.org
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 500 Washington, DC 20009 USA
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