Re: MEPs devise strategy to tackle vaccine hesitancy among public
Noel Thomas [1] may not be aware that Prof Pollard's role as chair of the European Medicines Agency's Scientific Advisory Group has come under censure by Nordic Cochrane [2]:
"Contrary to EMA’s statement in its letter to us, “We would like to assure you that the policy was
correctly applied to the participants of the SAG meeting on HPV vaccines which took place on 21
October 2015,” EMA’s policy about restricting members of its SAG meeting to participate fully in the
meeting was not correctly applied. There were no restrictions for the chair of the meeting, Andrew
Pollard, although he had declared several conflicts of interest in relation to the HPV vaccine
manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur MSD, until 2014 and 2013, respectively. ..
"We asked EMA to inform us of its justification for offering Andrew Pollard, privileges that were
denied others with conflicts of interest. EMA did not respond to this but provided a nonsense reply:
“Finally, with regard to your claim of a potential conflict of interest of the SAG's chair, please note
that the European Medicines Agency takes due care to ensure that its scientific committee members
and experts, including SAG members and experts, do not have any financial or other interests that
could affect their impartiality.”...
"Pollard spoke about the many lives they saved and said there was no evidence of safety problems. The statement about the lack of harms was inappropriate to make for a chairman of an EMA committee in the middle of an ongoing process to assess whether or not there is a safety signal..."
Nordic Cochrane maintained its criticisms subsequent to being rejected not only by the EMA but by the European Ombudsman, which puts into question the very objectivity of European institutions.
Rapid Response:
Re: MEPs devise strategy to tackle vaccine hesitancy among public
Noel Thomas [1] may not be aware that Prof Pollard's role as chair of the European Medicines Agency's Scientific Advisory Group has come under censure by Nordic Cochrane [2]:
"Contrary to EMA’s statement in its letter to us, “We would like to assure you that the policy was
correctly applied to the participants of the SAG meeting on HPV vaccines which took place on 21
October 2015,” EMA’s policy about restricting members of its SAG meeting to participate fully in the
meeting was not correctly applied. There were no restrictions for the chair of the meeting, Andrew
Pollard, although he had declared several conflicts of interest in relation to the HPV vaccine
manufacturers, GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi Pasteur MSD, until 2014 and 2013, respectively. ..
"We asked EMA to inform us of its justification for offering Andrew Pollard, privileges that were
denied others with conflicts of interest. EMA did not respond to this but provided a nonsense reply:
“Finally, with regard to your claim of a potential conflict of interest of the SAG's chair, please note
that the European Medicines Agency takes due care to ensure that its scientific committee members
and experts, including SAG members and experts, do not have any financial or other interests that
could affect their impartiality.”...
"Pollard spoke about the many lives they saved and said there was no evidence of safety problems. The statement about the lack of harms was inappropriate to make for a chairman of an EMA committee in the middle of an ongoing process to assess whether or not there is a safety signal..."
Nordic Cochrane maintained its criticisms subsequent to being rejected not only by the EMA but by the European Ombudsman, which puts into question the very objectivity of European institutions.
[1] Noel Thomas ' Re: MEPs devise strategy to tackle vaccine hesitancy among public' 29 March 2018, https://www.bmj.com/content/360/bmj.k1378/rr-3
[2] Peter C Gøtzsche, Karsten Juhl Jørgensen, Tom Jefferson, Margrete Auken, Louise Brinth, Nordic Cochrane, 2 November 2017, http://nordic.cochrane.org/sites/nordic.cochrane.org/files/public/upload...
Competing interests: No competing interests