'Independent' experts

Jeff Schmidt, author of "Disciplined Minds: A critical look at salaried professionals and the soul-battering system that shapes their lives", speaks at the Frederic Ewen Academic Freedom Center's 2nd Annual Conference at New York University on April 3, 2009. [Part 1/3]

Experts who sit on national vaccine advisory panels are asked to disclose any industry ties and other conflicts of interest. But Paul D Thacker finds that disclosure standards differ widely, often leaving the public in the dark In the wake of lightning fast authorisations of covid-19 vaccines in the UK and the US, public health officials have worked hard to maintain confidence in these new products. British and American officials have emphasised the independence of the experts who authorise vaccines and those who issue advice on them. But an investigation by The BMJ has found that some of these experts have significant industry ties that government agencies do not always disclose. We looked at experts sitting on the covid-19 authorisation committees at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as those on the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises the government on vaccines. It was not possible to repeat the exercise with the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which licenses medicines and gave temporary authorisation for covid-19 vaccines, because the MHRA and its adviser, the Commission on Human Medicines, make almost none of their meetings or documents public.1 Both the FDA and the UK government require panellists to disclose conflicts only from the previous 12 months, which can miss significant financial payments that occurred in recent years. We also found examples where panellists disclosed to committees their grants, patents, and other industry relationships in their publications, but it seems that the committees did not find these matters worth making public, and they remained undisclosed until now. Most experts on the FDA and JCVI committees registered no conflicts of interest. From the JCVI’s December meeting on 22 December 2020, the minutes report that 18 of 19 members had “no registered conflicts …

As testing and the Oxford AstraZeneca vaccine are hailed as UK pandemic successes, why won’t Oxford University or the government disclose the “long list” of financial interests of a high profile researcher at the centre of both? Paul D Thacker investigates Since the covid-19 outbreak began early last year, John Bell, regius professor of medicine at Oxford University, has held high profile roles in the UK government’s epidemic response while also working with AstraZeneca on the vaccine. But both Oxford and the government have refused to disclose Bell’s financial interests after The BMJ filed freedom of information (FOI) requests. More alarmingly, it appears that the government is referring media enquiries about Bell through the Cabinet Office and is scrutinising a reporter for The BMJ as it has other reporters it finds troublesome.1 The BMJ has been unable to gain either direct contact with Bell or contact through his employer, Oxford University, despite multiple attempts. The Daily Mail reported on Bell’s financial ties in September 2020, noting that he had £773 000 (€893 000; $1.1m) worth of shares in the pharmaceutical company Roche.2 The newspaper published the story after Roche sold the government £13.5m of antibody tests, which Public Health England later found to be unreliable. Bell had headed the National Covid Testing Scientific Advisory Panel and chaired the government’s test approvals group, but he told the Mail that he had no role in the purchase and that he had disclosed to the government “a long list of my interests.” The government and Oxford University’s failure to be open about Bell’s financial ties make it impossible for the public to know what, if any, interests the professor has when influencing key decisions about which of the many covid-19 tests the UK should …

Experts who sit on national vaccine advisory panels are asked to disclose any industry ties and other conflicts of interest. But Paul D Thacker finds that disclosure standards differ widely, often leaving the public in the dark In the wake of lightning fast authorisations of covid-19 vaccines in the UK and the US, public health officials have worked hard to maintain confidence in these new products. British and American officials have emphasised the independence of the experts who authorise vaccines and those who issue advice on them. But an investigation by The BMJ has found that some of these experts have significant industry ties that government agencies do not always disclose. We looked at experts sitting on the covid-19 authorisation committees at the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), as well as those on the UK’s Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which advises the government on vaccines. It was not possible to repeat the exercise with the UK’s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), which licenses medicines and gave temporary authorisation for covid-19 vaccines, because the MHRA and its adviser, the Commission on Human Medicines, make almost none of their meetings or documents public.1 Both the FDA and the UK government require panellists to disclose conflicts only from the previous 12 months, which can miss significant financial payments that occurred in recent years. We also found examples where panellists disclosed to committees their grants, patents, and other industry relationships in their publications, but it seems that the committees did not find these matters worth making public, and they remained undisclosed until now. Most experts on the FDA and JCVI committees registered no conflicts of interest. From the JCVI’s December meeting on 22 December 2020, the minutes report that 18 of 19 members had “no registered conflicts …

Professor John Edmunds has said until 'everyone' including children is vaccinated, resurgence is a real risk and that there is 'an argument' for turning to children as fast as we can in the vaccine rollout.

Little is known about the interests of the doctors, scientists, and academics on whose advice the UK government relies to manage the pandemic. Attempts to discover more are frequently thwarted, finds Paul D Thacker As the number of UK deaths caused by covid-19 reached 50 000 in early November, England enacted a second national lockdown to control the epidemic. Boris Johnson’s government put these measures into action after months of controversial and sometimes confusing policies, including the “rule of six,” regional tiered controls, and directions to “stay alert.” At the same time, the government has faced mounting questions about procurement decisions, from personal protective equipment to testing kits, from vaccine deals to the services of logistics companies. Calls for greater transparency around such decisions have included those bodies focused on science and health, such as the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), as well as taskforces charged with advising on vaccines and testing. Although Downing Street has become more transparent in disclosing the advice of SAGE, it has kept members’ financial conflicts of interest unpublished and shown little concern that advisers to the coronavirus Vaccine Taskforce have financial interests in pharmaceutical companies receiving government contracts. When The BMJ sought further information on these bodies, such as lists of members’ interests, the information was denied or requests were unanswered. After months of criticism about SAGE secrecy, the government reversed course this summer and began releasing the names of SAGE members, minutes of meetings, and some of its policy papers. Still, the government has refused to release to The BMJ the financial interest forms signed by SAGE members, leaving the public in the dark. Criticism over SAGE’s secrecy first appeared in a Nature editorial1 in March. In April, the government’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance sent a letter to parliament2 stating …

Germany, the Netherlands and the Republic of Ireland are the latest countries to suspend use of the Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID jab.

One of the coronavirus vaccinations, which has already been given to millions of adults in the UK, has now been approved for 12 to 15 year olds. But that doesn't necessarily mean the Pfizer jab will now be given to children. We put your questions to an expert.

The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, the Rt. Hon. Matt Hancock MP, this week visited the University of Bristol for the official launch of a new Pfizer Centre of Excellence for Epidemiolo

22 July update: Full summary of concerns after watching the programme 21 July 2022 Update. Note: this article was originally published several days before the BBC documentary "Unvaccinated" was screened on 20 July 2022. It was in response to the Daily Mail article about the programme. Having watched the programme it was every bit as biased as expected and there is a lot more to say about it; so I will be updating with a new article. I have, however, removed the word 'independent' from the title

When parents question if children should roll around in dirty old tires and chemical grass, astroturf scientists have real fake answers.

Groupthink is all around us. Decision-making in government, in the media and at work. It’s slowly killing the world. In the background of the most important events, the Covid-19 response and …

This text is part of a longer article I’m currently writing about the expansion of the UK biosecurity state through the winter of 2020-21, and which I hope to publish before Christmas. However, som…