BMJ  2007;334:338-340 (17 February), doi:10.1136/bmj.39119.519664.BE

Feature

Drug industry sponsorship

Who's funding WHO?

London

WHO guidelines state that it will not accept money from drug companies, but how rigorous is it in enforcing this? Michael Day investigates

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Serious questions have been raised about whether the World Health Organization is using patient groups as a conduit for receiving proscribed donations from the pharmaceutical industry. Email correspondence passed to the BMJ seems to show that in June 2006 Benedetto Saraceno, the director of WHO's department of mental health and substance abuse, suggested that a patient organisation accept $10 000 (£5000; 7000) from GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) on WHO's behalf. The sum was then to be passed on to WHO—ostensibly with the intention of obscuring the origins of the donation. GSK withdrew its offer of funding when it learnt that acceptance was conditional on obscuring its origin. However, the email exchange indicates that other sums of money originating from drug companies may have already been channelled to WHO through patient groups.

When asked about this correspondence, Dr Saraceno told the BMJ that his email to the patient organisation was "clumsily worded" and . . . [Full text of this article]

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