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WHO reveals names of H1N1 emergency committee

WHO has released the names and affiliations of emergency committee members who convened to advise the agency in 2009 during the influenza A (H1N1) pandemic.

After recently announcing the end of the pandemic, the emergency committee members’ names and affiliations were posted on WHO’s website. The panel included:

• Lawson Ahadzie, MBChB, MPH, former head of surveillance department of the Ghana Health Service/Ministry of Health in Accra, Ghana. Ahadzie’s membership was suspended after becoming a WHO staff member after the fifth committee meeting.
• André Basse, Counselor of the Embassy Senegal in Paris.
• Muhammad Akbar Chaudhry, MBBS, of Fatima Jinnah Medical College in Lahore, Pakistan. He joined the committee after its sixth meeting.
• Supamit Chunssuttiwat, MD, MPH, of the Ministry of Public Health in Bangkok.
• Nancy Cox, PhD, director of the influenza division at the CDC.
• Anthony Evans, MD, of the International Civil Aviation Organization in Montreal.
• John McKenzie, PhD, of Curtin University in Perth, Australia.
• Arnold Monto, MD, of University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
• Fernando Otaiza, MD, MSc, of the Ministry of Health in Santiago, Chile.
• Rogelio Pérez Padilla, MD, director-general of the Instituto Nacional de Enfermedades Respiratorias in Mexico City.
• Wing Hong Seto, MD, of the Queen Mary Hospital in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region.
• Masato Tashiro, MD, PhD, of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Tokyo.
• Claude Thibeault, MD, consultant in aviation medicine and occupational health in Montreal.
• John Wood, PhD, of the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control in Herts, United Kingdom.
• Maria Zambon, PhD, of the Health Protection Agency Center for Infection in London.
• Neil Morris Ferguson, of the Imperial College Faculty of Medicine in London and adviser to the committee.

The following members declared conflicts of interest:

Cox said the public health and surveillance research unit at the CDC receives funding from International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations (IFPMA) for activities of CDC as a WHO Collaborating Center in the field of influenza vaccine research and virus isolation work.

Monto has been a current and past consultant on pandemic and/or seasonal influenza for GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Roche, Baxter and Sanofi, and his research unit at the University of Michigan received a grant from Sanofi-Pasteur for a clinical trial on influenza vaccines. Compensation for his consultancies is reported to be less than $10,000.

Thibeault has been a consultant medical adviser to International Air Transport Association since 2004.

Wood’s research unit at the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control of the U.K. Health Protection Agency has conducted contract research on influenza vaccines for Sanofi-Pasteur, CSL, IFPMA, Novartis and PowderMed.

Zambon’s U.K. Health Protection Agency Center for Infection receives funding from Sanofi, Novartis, CSL, Baxter and GlaxoSmithKline for contract work performed in her laboratory.

Ferguson has been a consultant for Roche, GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, with reported compensation being less than $7,000 in 2007.

‘The interests summarized above do not give rise to a conflict of interest such that experts concerned should be partially or totally excluded from participation in the emergency committee,” the statement on WHO’s website said. “However, following WHO’s policy, they were disclosed within the committee so that other members were aware of them. All other members of the emergency committee declared no relevant interests.”

Until now, committee members remained anonymous to prevent external influence on the panel’s decisions, according to WHO. The secrecy regarding the members’ identities, however, caused controversy after the British Medical Journal published a report in June that raised questions about committee members’ potential conflicts of interest and possible ties to the pharmaceutical industry.

In response, Margaret Chan, MD, MPH, director-general of WHO, said commercial interests did not interfere with the committee’s decision-making, and the members’ names would be released when they concluded their work.

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