Prescription Medicine

Throughout the sanctions imposed on Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War, continued because of failure of the Iraqi regime to submit to UN inspections, concern had grown about their ill effects on the population of Iraq. In addition, Saddam had deliberately hoarded funds excerbating their adverse effects, in order to generate sympathy for the removal of the sanctions. In 1996, the UN set-up the Oil for Food programme for Iraq to address these problems. Under the scheme oil could be sold, and food, medicine and other humanitarian goods could be obtained in return.

Although the Oil for Food programme had some success in countering in the adverse consequences of the sanctions on the Iraqi people, Saddam found a way to subvert the programme, by bribing individuals by supplying them with vouchers for cheap Iraqi oil. This was done in order to obtain support for lifting UN sanctions. and to create another illicit source of funding for his regime and presumably his series of palaces (most of which were built after 1991).

Those bribed included company executives to prominent politicians from various nations. An independent inquiry committee into the United Nations Oil for food was published in 2005 [PDF], and the associated press release stated that “The value of oil smuggled outside of the Programme is estimated by the Committee to be USD 10.99 billion as opposed to an estimated USD 1.8 billion of illicit revenue from Saddam Hussein’s manipulation of the Programme.”

The Guardian reports today that three drug companies have been asked to supply confidential information (emails and files) to the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) relating to “dealings in Iraq under the UN oil-for-food programme.”

The move is the latest in the SFO’s 22m investigation into alleged corruption involving UK firms operating in Iraq during the final years of the Saddam Hussein regime. Other companies targeted with similar disclosure demands include several British infrastructure firms.

In a statement, GSK said it did not believe its “employees or its agents in Iraq knowingly engaged in wrongdoing regarding the oil-for-food programme”, adding: “In fact, GSK went to considerable lengths to cooperate with UK government authorities responsible for the UK administration of the programme, and to impose anti-corruption measures when dealing with intermediaries in Iraq.”

AstraZeneca confirmed that a disclosure request had been received and would be fully met. A third drugs firm, the US-based Eli Lilly, which has a UK arm, yesterday said that it too had been asked to supply documents to the SFO.

Last January, the Guardian revealed SFO officials had returned from Washington DC with thousands of documents marking the start of a London-based criminal investigation. This followed a 2005 independent report, commissioned by then UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, into the oil-for-food programme.

The Guardian article goes on to suggest that this may restore the UK’s reputation for dealing with fraud, after the premature end of the SFO’s inquiry into potential corruption involved in a Saudi deal to buy 72 Eurofighter jets from BAE Systems. At the time, Oliver Kamm described this as an unprincipled and stupid decision. These new cases, far from restoring the UK’s reputation, merely highlight that the UK is quite willing to investigate cases which involve a horrendous regime no longer in existence, but choose to avoid investigating a case which involves an appalling regime we continue to do business with. It is a double standard the UK should have avoided at all costs - including lack of Saudi participation in intelligence matters.

Orac has a great post up on the difference between the two:

Scientific skepticism looks at the totality of evidence and evaluates each piece of it for its quality. Cranks are very selective about the data they choose to present, often vastly overselling its quality and vastly exaggerating flaws in current theory, in turn vastly overestimating their own knowledge of a subject and underestimating that of experts. This is perhaps the key characteristic of cranks and the biggest difference between a crank and a true skeptic. In addition, because the mainstream rejects them, there is often a strong sense of being under appreciated, leading them to view their failure to persuade the mainstream of the correctness of their views as being due to conspiracies or money. Antivaccinationists, for example, view the rejection of their belief that mercury in vaccines or even vaccines themselves cause autism by mainstream medicine as evidence that we’re all in the pocket of big pharma. Global warming denialists see the consensus as being politically motivated by the desire of “liberals” to tell them how to live. Evolution deniers view evolution as the result of atheistic scientists wanting to deny God.

Read the whole thing, as they say.

Questions linger about whether the companies can prove Vytorin fights heart attacks. At stake? Billions.

The BBC reports on an NHS poll (which is a clever publicity stunt) for a public vote on whether their new website should depict the human body as is, or leave out rather crucial bits of the body:

The NHS is asking patients whether a new interactive body map should be correct in every detail - or whether the genitals should be left off.
[…]
Professor Sir Muir Gray, chief knowledge officer for the NHS, is opposed to any censoring of the images.

He said: “I’m all for the genitalia, anything else would just be an overly prudish Victorian approach.

“It’s completely bonkers: the edited versions resemble space aliens. People have to accept this is the 21st century.”

I’m sure regular readers will join me in voting for the full monty.

Vote here.

Craig Brown writes:

A reader of my parodic A-Z of Eth!cal PR column by Su Barking has kindly sent in a cutting from the magazine PR Week, dated November 9, 2007.

“Clew Communications is to provide PR support for the relaunch of the controversial drug Thalidomide,” it reads.

A photograph of the MD of Clew Communications, Mary Hicks, is captioned simply: “Hicks: challenging brief.”

“US company Pharmion has called in the agency ahead of an expected launch across the UK and Europe in 2008. The drug hit the headlines in the 1970s when it emerged that its use in treating sickness during pregnancy in the previous decade had resulted in birth defects,” continues the report. “The agency’s MD Mary Hicks said: ‘The drug’s history is a challenge but less so than we expected.’?”

It serves as a handy reminder that satire, however excessive, will always be outclassed by reality. I would welcome any further examples of “challenging briefs” in the PR hall of mirrors.

The magazine article Craig Brown cites is factually incorrect. Thalidomide hits in the headline in the early 1960s, not the 1970s. However, the MD of Clew Communications, Mary Hicks, is perfectly correct to state that thalidomide’s history is a challenge, but not an insurmountable one. Although, quite understandably, some victims of thalidomide are concerned about its return to market, it is likely that most rational individuals would be quite prepared to see thalidomide return to the market for life-threatening diseases with appropriate controls. After all, it is not the only drug with the potential to harm unborn children. Although thalidomide can never be entirely rescued from its history, with good reason, there are surely harder PR jobs to be found.