University of Toronto Students Protest “Alternative Health” Vaccine Course
In the spring and summer of 2015, a course offered by the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto in Scarborough, Canada titled “Alternative Health: Practice and Theory” sparked an outcry among students attending the University’s medical school. The medical students alleged that the instructor, Professor Beth Landau-Halpern (photo left-hand…
Pfizer Vaccines: From Cradle to Grave
The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that Pfizer, Inc. of New York has been significantly expanding its vaccines product line. In a press briefing on July 21, 2015, Pfizer officials expressed their company’s plans to have vaccines to help protect people “from cradle to grave, from shots for pregnant women to protect their babies from the moment of birth to vaccines…
Tufts University Study Pegs World Vaccine Sales at $40 Billion by 2020
The value of the world market for vaccines was estimated at $33.1 billion in 2014—up from $24 billion in 2009 and $5 billion in 2000. A new study conducted by Tufts University’s Center for the Study of Drug Development (CSDD) in Boston, MA forecasts annual sales of vaccines around the world will reach $40 billion by 2020. According to a summary of the…
Biomedical Scientist Imprisoned for Fraudulent HIV Vaccine Research
On July 1, 2015, Dong-Pyou Han, a former biomedical scientist at Iowa State University, was sentenced to 57 months in prison for falsifying clinical trial data on HIV vaccines. He was also fined $7.2 million and will be under supervision for three years after his release. The story has been covered extensively by the media in the United States and abroad, including…
CDC Foundation Ties to Industry Raise Conflict of Interest Concerns
Earlier this year, an article published in the British Medical Journal by the associate editor, Jeanne Lenzer, revealed that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accepts funding from industy. Lenzer highlights that pharmaceuticals and other types of companies have the ability to fund CDC projects via the CDC Foundation.
Pharmaceutical Companies Developing 270 New Vaccines
The share of biologic-based drugs in the global pharmaceutical market is rising, with more and more products, especially vaccines, emerging from research and development efforts. A driving factor in biologic sector growth is drug company confidence that bigger revenue will be realized from the push to market. As of February 7, 2013, there were 907…