US dismisses bird flu claims

Mark Forbes Herald Correspondent in Jakarta
February 21, 2008

The United States has rejected the Indonesian Health Minister’s claims that it is using bird flu samples to produce biological weapons and World Health Organisation officials have condemned allegations of conspiring to profit from bird flu vaccines. The Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, is understood to have ordered the minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, to recall copies of her book on avian influenza, which alleges the US and the WHO are conspiring against developing countries by seizing control of bird flu samples.

WHO officials said they were dismayed by some of the claims and urged Dr Supari to do more to control bird flu’s spread and end her refusal to share virus samples – which is hampering attempts to find a cure.

At a news conference yesterday Dr Yudhoyono said Indonesia was willing to resume sharing bird flu virus samples if a fair and equitable agreement was reached.

“There is a misunderstanding among foreign nations that Indonesia won’t co-operate, as if Indonesia won’t share … but concrete co-operation has to be based on fairness.”

A US State Department spokeswoman, Susan Stahl, denied Dr Supari’s claim that Indonesian virus samples had been sent to a biological weapons laboratory in Los Alamos. The laboratory possessed no bird flu viruses from Indonesia or elsewhere, she said.

The facility’s only involvement was hosting a database of publicly available genetic-sequencing data to help track the evolution of the virus, she said.

Dr Supari yesterday continued to say that virus samples had been sent via the WHO to the laboratory in Los Alamos. “Whether they use it to make vaccine or develop chemical weapons would depend on the need and interest of the US Government. It is indeed a very dangerous situation for the destiny of humanity.”

The WHO’s assistant director-general for Health Security, David Heymann, said he was puzzled by the claims.

“I don’t understand why they would take this virus to make a biological weapon; it doesn’t transmit from human to human. Indonesia needs to spend more time on dealing with infections with chickens and stopping humans from being infected.”

He said Dr Supari had opened up the important issue of improving access to vaccines.

The director of the WHO Collaborating Centre for Influenza in Melbourne, Anne Kelso, said she was saddened by the accusations and the organisation monitored how the virus was changing. “We don’t personally profit in any way from that work,” she said.

 http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/us-dismisses-bird-flu-claims/2008/02/20/1203467183624.html

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 Indonesia accuses US of bird flu plot

THE Indonesian Health Minister has said the United States and the World Health Organisation are part of a global conspiracy to profit from the spread of bird flu and the US may use samples to produce biological weapons.

The views of Dr Siti Fadilah Supari, outlined in her new book, threaten to undermine efforts to control the spread of avian influenza. With 104 deaths, nearly half the world total, Indonesia is the new hotspot for the virus.

Despite claims by the minister that she has agreed to share virus samples and allow all nations access to resulting vaccines, Indonesia is still blocking sharing samples from human victims.

Applications to send more than 200 samples from chickens to an Australian laboratory had also been refused, inquiries by the Herald have revealed.

In the book, Dr Supari writes that WHO laboratories forwarded influenza viruses to Western companies so they could profit by selling vaccines back to developing countries: “The system of world health management has been very exploitative. It has been controlled by inhumanly desires, based on the greediness to raise capital and to control the world.”

Some Indonesian samples had been sent to a US Defence Department laboratory, Dr Supari says, adding that “some of our seed viruses had been in a laboratory known as a facility developing biological weapons in a superpower country”.

Privately, officials said Dr Supari’s belief that she was engaged on a God-driven crusade against an evil and “neo-colonialist” world health system – on the book’s cover she describes herself as the “divine hand behind avian influenza” – had caused her to lose touch with reality.

The President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, appears to have endorsed the book, having written its introduction.

Dr Yudhoyono supports Dr Supari’s claim that the virus is under control in Indonesia, stating the “occurrence rate and the number of affected areas are decreasing”.

smh.com