Adimmune Corp president Steve Chan (詹啟賢) yesterday called on the government to allow the results of the company’s A(H1N1) influenza vaccine clinical trials to be made public in a bid to allay public doubts about the locally produced vaccine.
Chan made the remarks in an interview with a radio station yesterday when asked by show host Tang Hsiang-long (唐湘龍) why Adimmune Corp did not publicize its vaccine trial results and statistics.
Chan said the company had wanted to make the information public, and had made the suggestion to health authorities, but they rejected the idea.
PHOTO: CNA
Adimmune Corp in July last year won the bid tendered by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to be the government’s main supplier of the vaccine against A(H1N1). The government ordered 10 million doses of the vaccine from Adimmune and another 5 million doses from Novartis as part of a national immunization program.
Reports of patients suffering serious side effects from the shots has cast doubts on the safety of the locally produced vaccine.
Saying that the vaccine produced by Adimmune Corp passed clinical trials in line with global standards, Chan said the health authorities’ repeated refusal to publicize the clinical trial information had contributed to the public’s doubts.
At a separate setting yesterday, the head of the Department of Health’s Bureau of Pharmaceutical Affairs, Kang Jaw-jou (康照洲), said there must have been a misunderstanding about the matter.
Kang said the department did not think it was appropriate to release the information because the review of clinical trials for children had not yet been completed at the time.
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