F&M - UPDATE 18

Dr. Richard North PhD. [UKIP]
Research Director EDD [European Parliament]
2001 July 19
Professor Roy Anderson
and Vaccination

T
he start of the current foot and mouth epidemic was not, as the government would have us believe, in February.  The probable start was some time in September. 

It is something of a curious coincidence, therefore, that in the period immediately prior to this month, there had been running synthetic FMD vaccine trials in four countries: the U.S. Taiwan, China and the United Kingdom.   Since this involved injecting pigs with the vaccine and then exposing them to live FMD virus, somewhere in the UK prior to the start of the FMD epidemic, pigs were being deliberately infected with FMD virus.   

It is even more curious that the UK trial was reportedly due to finish in September 2000, just about the time that FMD probably started.  However, few more details are known about the trial.  Of the two countries which opted to sign a secrecy agreement, the UK was one.  China was the other.   Nevertheless, it is known that a firm called United Biomedical Inc produced the vaccine, and the UK trial was carried out by an un-named 'partner'.   Although this 'partner' is un-named, UBI has licensing agreements on other vaccines with Merial UK, which is the sole FMD vaccine manufacturer in the UK.   

After the first case was confirmed on February 20, the Ministry of Agriculture enlisted its own epidemiologist, Prof John Wilesmith of the Veterinary Laboratories Agency, a veteran of BSE, to model the consequences. 

At his disposal was a 'decision support system' called EpiMAN, which can help predict the course of an epidemic, and develop strategy, using a tool called Interspread to model its spread across the country.  But this system was never used in action, owing to the intervention of an additional curiosity, Professor Roy Anderson.   

The singular oddity here is how quickly he became involved in the management of the epidemic, as his background is primarily in human health.  As head of the Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology at Imperial College Medical School - and formerly head of the Wellcome Trust Centre for Epidemiology of Infectious Disease at Oxford University - his main interests have been human diseases such as AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis, mainly from a global perspective.  He had also taken a close interest in measles, mumps and rubella vaccination. 

However, his team had taken an interest in BSE, while Anderson had got himself appointed to the government's Spongiform Encephalopathy Advisory Committee (SEAC), although his input - and public pronouncements - remain controversial.  As well as that, his interests included being a director and 30 percent shareholder of the International Biomedical and Health Sciences Consortium, and he is a scientific consultant to Abbott Pharmaceuticals, a major US company.  Additionally, he is consultant to SKS Scientific (presumably Smith Kline Beecham), and has links with the Hamburg Institute of Tropical Scientific Advisory Board Medicine.

One of the members of Prof. Anderson's research team was a young lady called Dr Christl Donnelly, a statistician, and, in yet another curious coincidence, she just happened to publish in October 2000 in Veterinary Science an analytical paper on the 1967 foot and mouth epidemic - a month or so after foot and mouth disease for real probably struck this country.  Why Donnelly should have so suddenly developed an interest in an animal disease, has not been explained. 

This notwithstanding, the paper effectively staked a claim for Anderson's team as having some expertise in FMD.  And call it ambition or just public-spirited concern, but when the current FMD epidemic was finally detected in February, Anderson was extremely quick off the mark.  By the end of February, unasked and uninvited, he had assembled his team at Imperial College and had it working up computer models of the epidemic.  By 6 March, his team was ready to make a presentation of its 'findings'.   

Yet another curiosity intervened here as the presentation was not made to MAFF - nor veterinary officials - but to Sir John Krebs of the Food Standards Agency, who had arranged a meeting for that purpose.  Quite why Krebs should have been taking such an interest in FMD has also not been explained but it is germane to note that his responsibility is for food safety.  FMD, being an animal disease, was entirely outside his remit yet, for some reason, no-one from MAFF - which was responsible for controlling the disease - was invited to the meeting. 

Here, a whole raft of coincidences intervene.  Firstly, Anderson and Krebs were not strangers.  Both had worked in the Zoology Department in Oxford University.  Secondly, both were Fellows of the Royal Society.  Thirdly, Anderson had worked closely with another Oxford scientist, Professor Sir Robert May, currently President of the Royal Society and previous Govt Chief Scientist, and had collaborated with him in producing two text books on epidemiology.  Fourth, May and Krebs were not exactly strangers.  They had both worked in the same Oxford University department and both had been awarded Royal Society Research Professorships.  Finally, on this highly buoyant raft, Anderson and Krebs were widely seen as May's proteges. 

Whatever the links, the Krebs-Anderson axis evidently had enough clout to prise data on the FMD epidemic from MAFF, which they obtained on 14 March.   Then, on 23 March 2001, a mere month after the epidemic had been detected by MAFF, Krebs managed to arrange another meeting.  This time MAFF was invited, in the form of Jim Scudamore, Chief Veterinary Officer.  They heard presentations from Neil Ferguson and colleagues from Anderson's team, from Mark Woolhouse of the University of Edinburgh, and opinions from experts at the Institute of Animal Health and the Veterinary Laboratories Agency. 

Also present at the meeting was Professor David King, the current Chief Scientific Adviser, alumni of Cambridge University and successor to Sir Robert May.  Needless to say, King - whose speciality is 'surface chemistry' - was a member of the Royal Society.  King almost certainly owed his position as Chief Scientist to May, as did Krebs his appointment as head of the Food Standards Agency. 

If Anderson was after favours - such as a 'slice of the action' on FMD - he certainly knew the right people; and possibly had the right 'leverage'.  Not least of this might have been the curious episode of the government's decision to award the UK's biggest science contract in 15 years to an Oxford laboratory at the expense of the North-west. This was the £550million Synchrotron project which was pioneered and developed by the Daresbury Laboratory in Cheshire. 

As Daresbury had been the field leader, it was the obvious location for the new project - particularly as it is the only major northern-based publicly funded research institute.  But the project was part-funded by the Wellcome Trust. Sir Robert May, then the Government's chief scientific adviser, wanted the project to go to Oxford.  Anderson, his close associate and colleague, at the time just happened to be a Trustee at the Wellcome Trust. And it was the Wellcome Trust that was widely regarded as the driving force behind the choice of Oxford.   

Whatever might have passed, Anderson got his way on FMD.  He was soon effectively to take over the direction of the control policy, based on computer projections produced by his team - despite Dr Paul Kitching Animal Health Institute telling Channel 4 News that the new projections were almost worthless.  He also pointed out how conveniently they had been adjusted when the favoured election date was moved from May to June.  But the government had a perfect defence to the charge of fiddling the figures: its methods had been devised by the independent expert Professor Anderson, a man of unimpeachable reputation. It was a point stressed by Prof. David King, at a press conference on 3 May. 

That 'reputation' however, was something less than unimpeachable. January 1999, Anderson was suspended on full pay in while the university authorities investigated complaints filed by his colleague Dr Sunetra Gupta - whom he had accused, publicly and falsely, of gaining her post at Oxford by sleeping with another professor in the zoology department. Dr Karen Day, a member of the panel which appointed Dr Gupta, also complained of his 'offensive and intimidatory' behaviour.  Anderson was reinstated two months later after agreeing to apologise in writing to those concerned. 

This failed to satisfy Dr Gupta, who continued to press for a public retraction. A meeting attended by 26 readers, lecturers and professors in the zoology department passed a unanimous vote of no confidence in Professor Anderson.  Meanwhile, an inquiry by the university into the research centre in the zoology department criticised his 'autocratic' management style: conditions at the centre were 'intolerable' and divisions ran 'very deep'. 

A separate financial audit then found that Anderson had not disclosed to either the university or to the Wellcome Trust, which largely financed his research centre, that he was a director and shareholder of International Biomedical and Health Sciences Consortium, a private consultancy firm which had close financial links with the centre. As director of the Wellcome Trust Centre for the Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases, he had applied for over £4 million of research grants from Wellcome, while also being a Trustee of the Wellcome Trust itself, which awarded the grants. 

'There was a degree of naivety on his part', a Wellcome spokesman said. 'He should have been aware of the procedures to be followed.  The research centre was also receiving commercial grants which were not declared, in breach of the trust's regulations'. 

On 9 May 2000, Anderson resigned his Oxford post and announced that he was taking up a chair at Imperial College. A month later, he finally gave Dr Gupta the formal apology she wanted, admitting that there had been 'no foundation in truth whatsoever' in his comments. He paid her legal costs plus damages of £l,000, which she donated to Save the Children. As she told the Daily Telegraph last June: "I felt nobody should be allowed to get away with this and remain in a position where they are making judgements about people's lives... I felt there was no other choice, no other way to protect myself or other people'. 

Anderson also resigned from his seat on the Board of Trustees for the Wellcome Trust.  His departure from was announced by Wellcome on 11 March 2000 in somewhat opaque terms, stating that, 'in view of recent events at the University of Oxford', his resignation 'would be in the best interests of both the Trust and himself'. 

Given this man's impeccable background, it is curious to say the least that he should still be treated with such authority.  But what is even more curious is his stance on vaccination.  His view, articulated by The Daily Telegraph, was that: 'Immunisation would not help much because it allows the disease to spread from an infected farm, given the inevitable delay that would occur between confirmation and vaccination'.   

This was from a man who, despite strong concern about MMR, was one of the prime advocates of routine vaccination, a man who works for major pharmaceutical companies which produce most of the world's vaccines.  Is there any connection between Anderson and the vaccine trial and Foot and Mouth?  Did something go wrong?  Is this why he was so quick off the mark and so keen to have a slice of the action?  I think we should be told. 

Ends 

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