Researchers who have fought for years to get full data on Roche’s influenza medicine Tamiflu said yesterday that governments who stockpile it are wasting billions of dollars on a drug whose effectiveness is in doubt.
The row has drawn in the drugmaker as well as industry regulators and independent scientists. Supporters of Tamiflu said the researchers’ conclusions were flawed and insisted the drug is both safe and effective.
The dispute over the benefits of Tamiflu, and to a lesser extent of GlaxoSmithKline’s Relenza, blew up with the joint publication by the respected Cochrane Review research network and the British Medical Journal of an analysis of trial data, which found no evidence behind claims the drugs cut hospital admissions or reduce complications.
The review’s main findings were that the medicines had few if any beneficial effects, but did have adverse side effects that were previously dismissed or overlooked, but Roche, which has been under fire for several years over its refusal to allow the Cochrane team unrestricted access to Tamiflu data, rejected the findings, saying it “fundamentally disagrees with the overall conclusions” of their study.
“We firmly stand by the quality and integrity of our data, reflected in decisions reached by 100 regulators across the world and subsequent real-world evidence demonstrating that Tamiflu is an effective medicine in the treatment and prevention of influenza,” the company said in a statement.
Tamiflu sales hit almost US$3 billion in 2009 — mostly due to its use in the H1N1 flu pandemic — but they have since declined.
The drug, one of a class of medicines known as neuraminidase inhibitors, is approved by regulators worldwide and is stockpiled in preparation for a potential global flu outbreak. It is also on the WHO’s “essential medicines” list.
The US has spent more than US$1.3 billion buying a strategic reserve of antivirals including Tamiflu, while the British government has spent almost ￡424 million (US$703 million) on a stockpile of about 40 million Tamiflu doses.
Heneghan’s team say their analysis is the first based on full data — from 20 trials of Tamiflu, known generically as oseltamivir, and 26 trials of Relenza, also known as zanamivir.
At a briefing in London to present their findings, Heneghan said the money spent on stockpiles “has been thrown down the drain” because until now, the full data had not been seen by regulators, governments, doctors or patients.
“The original evidence presented to government agencies around the world was incomplete and when they [the Cochrane review team] eventually received the full information on these drugs, the complete evidence gives a very much less positive picture,” said Fiona Godlee, editor of the British Medical Journal, which has spearheaded a four-year long campaign to force Roche to reveal all its Tamiflu data.
The Cochrane review found that compared with a placebo, or dummy pill, Tamiflu led to a quicker alleviation of flu-like symptoms of about half a day (down from seven days to six-and-a-half days) in adults, but the effect in children was more uncertain.
There was no evidence of a reduction in hospitalizations or in serious flu complications such as confirmed pneumonia, bronchitis, sinusitis or ear infections in either adults or children, the team said.
Tamiflu also increased the risk of nausea and vomiting in adults by about 4 percent and in children by 5 percent, they said, and there was a reported increased risk of psychiatric events — described as mood changes — of about 1 percent when Tamiflu was used as a preventative drug in uninfected people.
Godlee described the battle with Roche as a “really lengthy cat and mouse, Alice in Wonderland, bizarre experience of trying to get data on a drug which governments around the world were busy buying, stockpiling and spending billions of dollars on.”
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS