Healthy Skepticism Library item: 18493

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Publication type: news

Government urged to be open with pharmaceutical contracts
ABC News 2010 July 26
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/07/26/2964416.htm

Full text:

An infectious diseases expert is calling on the Federal Government to offer greater transparency when awarding contracts to pharmaceutical companies.

It comes after confirmation the Government provided the manufacturer of the swine flu vaccine with indemnity against claims for side effects.

CSL won the national contract to manufacture Panavax for prevention of H1N1 influenza, with the Rudd government agreeing to an indemnity.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Health and Ageing says the terms are confidential but CSL is liable to an agreed amount, with the Commonwealth footing the bill beyond that point, providing the manufacturing process complies with regulations.

The Australian National University’s Professor Peter Collignon says the Government must be more open about the details of multi-million dollar contracts awarded to pharmaceutical companies.

“This is public money being spent on a large number of vaccines. If the company is completely indemnified, that seems to be excessive,” he said.

“We need to know how much profit was made and what can be done in the future to make a more reasonable vaccine production that looks after the taxpayers a bit better than necessarily the pharmaceutical company.”

A CSL spokeswoman says the company has not received special treatment.

She says governments around the world provide similar indemnities.