The Aug. 2, 2005 file photo shows the logo of Swiss pharmaceutics company Roche in Basel, Switzerland. (AP Photo/Keystone, Steffen Schmidt) |
LONDON: A
leading British medical journal is asking the drug maker Roche to release all
its data on Tamiflu, claiming there is no evidence the drug can actually stop
the flu.
The drug
has been stockpiled by dozens of governments worldwide in case of a global flu
outbreak and was widely used during the 2009 swine flu pandemic.
On Monday,
one of the researchers linked to the BMJ called for European governments to sue
Roche.
"I
suggest we boycott Roche's products until they publish missing Tamiflu
data," wrote Peter Gotzsche, leader of the Nordic Cochrane Centre in
Copenhagen. He said governments should take legal action against Roche to get
the money back that was "needlessly" spent on stockpiling Tamiflu.
Last year,
Tamiflu was included in a list of "essential medicines" by the World
Health Organization, which often prompts governments or donor agencies to buy
the drug.
WHO
spokesman Gregory Hartl said the agency recommended the drug be used to treat
unusual influenza viruses like bird flu. "We do have substantive evidence
it can stop or hinder progression to severe disease like pneumonia," he
said.
In 2009,
the BMJ and researchers at the Nordic Cochrane Centre asked Roche to make all
its Tamiflu data available. At the time, Cochrane Centre scientists were
commissioned by Britain to evaluate flu drugs. They found no proof that Tamiflu
reduced the number of complications in people with influenza.
"Despite
a public promise to release (internal company reports) for each (Tamiflu)
trial...Roche has stonewalled," BMJ editor Fiona Godlee wrote in an
editorial last month.
In a
statement, Roche said it had complied with all legal requirements on publishing
data and provided Gotzsche and his colleagues with 3,200 pages of information
to answer their questions.
"Roche
has made full clinical study data...available to national health authorities
according to their various requirements, so they can conduct their own
analyses," the company said.
Roche says
it doesn't usually release patient-level data available due to legal or
confidentiality constraints. It said it did not provide the requested data to
the scientists because they refused to sign a confidentiality agreement.
Roche is
also being investigated by the European Medicines Agency for not properly
reporting side effects, including possible deaths, for 19 drugs including Tamiflu
that were used in about 80,000 patients in the U.S.
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