Government Advisers Too Accepted Payments From Covid Vaccine And Treatment Manufacturers

It wasn't just the celebrity doctors...

Further research has uncovered that celebrity doctors receiving payments from manufacturers of Covid treatments they endorse are not an isolated phenomenon. In fact, these conflicts extend to key figures within government oversight and advisory committees.

These financial relationships between major pharmaceutical companies and influential public health figures indicate a deep-seated influence on UK policy and regulatory decisions. Such arrangements challenge the expected objectivity of public health recommendations, raising concerns about the extent of corporate sway over officials and, by extension, the policies we endure.

Listed below are several government advisers who accepted direct payments from pharmaceutical companies producing Covid treatments. These advisers were members of either the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI), which issues guidance to the UK government on vaccination, or the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), which provide scientific and technical advice during emergencies. Both bodies significantly shaped the government's Covid response.

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Sir Jonathan Van Tam

Jonathan Van Tam, a British physician specialising in influenza, served as Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England from 2017 to 2022. During his tenure, Van-Tam played a pivotal role in the Covid response, helping to establish the Vaccine Task Force (VTF), taking part in Downing Street press conferences, and contributing to SAGE - the group that brought us mask mandates.

In April 2021, amidst growing concerns over blood clots linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine - a situation that led several European countries to halt use - Van-Tam sought to minimise the perceived risk on behalf of the government. He metaphorically compared the vaccine rollout to navigating a massive liner across the Atlantic, posing that course corrections during such a journey were to be expected. He omitted any mention of the vaccine's expedited emergency approval and the brevity of its initial trials, points that could have affected public perception and policy decisions.

According to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), while a member of SAGE and the Vaccine Taskforce, which oversaw vaccine contracts and investments, Van Tam received £5,892.01 from AstraZeneca the following year. A company that benefitted from his downplaying of risks associated with its product and its widespread purchase (which he oversaw) paid him.

After leaving his post in 2022, Van-Tam joined Moderna as a part-time adviser in 2023. In that timeframe, the UK government struck a deal worth £1 billion with the company to “future proof” the country against another pandemic by making 250 million vaccines a year.

Professor Wei Shen Lim

Wei Shen Lim is a consultant respiratory physician and honorary professor of medicine at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust. He serves as the Deputy Chair and Covid-19 Committee Chair of the JCVI and as a member of SAGE.

In August 2021, Lim dismissed concerns over adverse events caused by Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine during a JCVI press briefing. He suggested the increase in myocarditis reports was not indicative of a causal relationship with the vaccine per se, but a consequence of the heightened surveillance and data collection resulting from the vast numbers of people getting vaccinated.

During the same briefing, the JCVI recommended Covid vaccinations for healthy teenagers, despite concerns about the questionable benefit-to-risk ratio, given the minimal threat Covid posed to the age group. It was here when Lim made a point to say that individuals aged 16 and older can receive the vaccine without parental consent, even though they are not considered legal adults.

According to information available on the British Thoracic Society’s website, Pfizer paid Lim over £25,001.00 only months after these comments. Curiously, the payment is notably absent from the disclosure logs of the ABPI. Meaning, Lim may have requested for its omission, as per the ABPI’s rules that allow individuals to request non-public disclosure of their payments.

Professor Jeremy Brown

Jeremy Brown, a clinician scientist specialising in respiratory infections, has been an influential figure in directing the UK government's Covid response, alongside figures like Van Tam and Lim. He joined the JCVI in 2018 and is a member of several editorial boards in the scientific community.

During 2021 and 2022, Brown was a frequent guest on TalkRadio, where he amplified the risks associated with Covid. In an interview in January 2021, he stated to presenter Julia Hartley-Brewer that the alternative to lockdown is “allowing every hospital to be completely filled with very severe lung infection due to coronavirus”.

According to ABPI, Brown received £1,400.00 from Gilead Sciences, the manufacturer of the antiviral drug Remdesivir, in 2021. Starting in May 2020, the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) began purchasing and administering Remdesivir to select Covid patients. Brown was a member of a committee that influenced NHS and government policy, which led to the acquisition of Remdesivir, a product from a company that compensated him shortly thereafter. Brown consistently emphasised the risks of Covid infection, which indirectly supported Gilead’s efforts to market their repurposed antiviral as a Covid treatment globally.

In 2022, Gilead’s Remdesivir faced significant controversy due to reports of severe and potentially fatal side effects. Widely adopted by U.S. hospitals during the pandemic, the drug's usage was encouraged by government financial incentives. This widespread administration was linked to a series of patient deaths, leading to multiple lawsuits against the hospitals that included Remdesivir in their treatment protocols.

Professor Daniela Ferreira

Daniela Ferreira holds the title of Professor of Respiratory Infection and Vaccinology at the Oxford Vaccine Group, within the Department of Paediatrics at the University of Oxford. She is also the Director of the Liverpool Vaccine Group and a member of the JCVI.

In June 2020, Ferreira discussed her department's collaboration with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine trials on BBC Radio Merseyside. She confidently stated that verifying the vaccine's efficacy would require only 2-6 months and 500 participants. She expressed no concern about potential side effects.

In October 2021, Ferreira celebrated the launch of The Pandemic Institute on the social media platform X. The institute promotes "human challenge models" to expedite accelerated vaccine and drug development. A month prior, in September 2021, she advocated for the benefits of vaccination over natural immunity on X, which emphasised the need for vaccination even following infection. This was shortly after an extensive Israeli study found that natural immunity provided better and longer lasting protection than the Pfizer vaccine.

According to ABPI disclosures, in 2021 and 2022, Ferreira received payments from Sanofi Aventis - a French pharmaceutical giant that collaborated with BioNTech in manufacturing Pfizer’s Covid vaccine - and directly from Pfizer. These payments totalled £1,312.50 in 2021 from Sanofi Aventis and £3,753.92 in 2022, plus an additional £1,300 from Pfizer in 2022. Like her colleagues Van Tam and Lim, Ferreira was part of a government advisory body, promoting products made by companies that paid her.

Ferreira also faced a conflict of interest while working with the Oxford Vaccine Group on the AstraZeneca vaccine and simultaneously serving on the supposedly independent JCVI committee advising the government. She was later offered a job by the Oxford Vaccine Group, which she accepted.

Professor Christopher Brightling

Christopher Brightling, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences and a National Institute for Health Research Senior Investigator, holds several prestigious positions, including Respiratory Theme Lead for Leicester NIHR Biomedical Research Center and Director of the Institute for Lung Health. Throughout 2020 and 2021, he was a member of SAGE, advising both the government and members of the House of Lords on Covid and related treatments.

In December 2021, during an appearance on TalkTV, Brightling discussed the Omicron variant, stressing the importance of vaccination and booster shots as the strain might "bypass some natural immunity”. That same month, data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed that those who were triple-vaccinated were over four times more likely to test positive for Omicron compared to those unvaccinated.

Brightling’s financial ties with Covid treatment manufacturers are extensive. AstraZeneca compensated him with £2,475.00 in 2020, £2,250.00 in 2021, and £9,888.47 in 2022. Sanofi Aventis, a collaborator of BioNTech and Pfizer’s vaccine, paid him a further £13,681.00 in 2020, £9,209.00 in 2021, and £1,062.00 in 2022. Unlike other government advisors, Brightling received some payments in 2020 while the vaccines were undergoing trials. He advocated for the mass of adoption of products made by companies that were paying him.

Interestingly, these payments are not listed in Brightling's register of interests on the UK government website. This oversight extends beyond Brightling himself; both the media outlets that featured him and the government also failed to inform the public of his conflicts. As they did for Van Tam, Lim, Brown, and Ferreira.

Professor Deborah Dunn-Walters

Deborah Dunn-Walters, a British immunologist and Professor of Immunology at the University of Surrey, held positions as a member of SAGE and Chair of the British Society for Immunology COVID-19 Taskforce. She was active in various parliamentary hearings, advising MPs on vaccines and treatments.

In September 2022, Dunn-Walters praised the government's recommendation for over 18’s to receive Pfizer and Moderna’s booster shots, asserting that boosters enhance immune response and vaccination remains the “safest” defence against severe Covid illness. However, three months prior, a significant study published in the medical journal Vaccines highlighted a substantial link between mRNA vaccines and severe blood clots. This finding pertained to the same mRNA technology utilised in Moderna’s Spikevax bivalent Omicron BA.1/Original 'wild-type' vaccine, which JCVI and SAGE had just recommended for all UK adults. The benefit-to-risk ratio for taking Moderna’s vaccine for such young adults was also under question.

Here is a clip of Dunn-Walters discussing vaccine hesitancy with a host of MPs and members of the House of Lords in 2021. In response to a question from Baroness Masham about the potential establishment of a Covid helpline to help the public stay informed, she advocated for less direct public engagement rather than more:

By 2022, she had received £2,817.57 from Moderna. Similar to Brightling, the government’s SAGE register of interests did not list this financial relationship, which could be because of the timing of payments relative to the last disclosure update in March 2022 - we cannot be sure. Once again, however, we have another government adviser on the payroll of a company whose products she promoted.

The Central Problem…

Despite the significance of these disclosures, they offer only a fragmented view of the situation. There are five fundamental issues with the current ABPI disclosure rules:

• Timing of Declarations: Practitioners must declare their involvement with pharmaceutical companies when the contract is signed, not when they receive payment.

• Disclosure Deadlines: Disclosure to the ABPI is only required within six months after the end of the year in which payment was made, potentially delaying the disclosure of actual payment by up to 18 months, and even longer from the time the contract was signed.

• Research Limitations: The ABPI’s current policy limits the availability of disclosed payment data to three years, after which it is deleted, making long-term research difficult.

• Transparency Issues: The life cycle of a medication can span decades, suggesting that the ABPI's time-limited transparency does not provide a complete picture.

• Consent to Disclose: Healthcare professionals can opt out of having their payment details publicly attributed to them in the ABPI database.

That last one always irks me. If the rules are bent, how can we expect individuals working within them not to be?

You know the saying…

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