There is an urgent need for a global solution emerging pandemic diseases, according to the Canadian led Internation Consortium on Anti-Virals.

The international consortium is holding a public symposium and scientific workshop called Bird Flu Is Just the Beginning at Trent University next weekend.

More than 130 scientists, researchers and medical experts from around the world will attend.

The organization was founded in 2004 following the BARS crisis. It is comprisedof experts and institutions from 15 countries.

It is mobilizing the development of anti-virals to fight a pandemic influenza, as well as hepatitis and HIV/AIDS.

This hardly seems the time to be arguing against apocalyptic public health warnings, as the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina continues to unfold. But Katrina should not be a basis for heeding every dire prophecy. Given that we have limited resources to predict and protect ourselves, the hurricane instead is a reminder of the importance of distinguishing health warnings that are grounded in impending danger from warnings that are not.

Fear works best as a warning system when it is a response to dangers that directly threaten those who are afraid. In New Orleans, fear of the weak levees could have mobilized the public to put more pressure on the local and federal governments to fix them.

But that didn't happen. One reason is that Americans tend to pour their fears into dangers that, however real, pose a relatively low risk for any individual -- like terrorism, anthrax, smallpox, and now the avian flu.

The avian flu virus, or H5N1, has killed millions of birds in China and Russia, either directly or because they've been destroyed to prevent its spread. The virus has infected around 112 humans, fewer than 60 of whom have died. Despite the small numbers, public health officials in Russia, Germany, and the United States -- along with the media -- have loudly sounded the alarm: Avian influenza is about to transform into a massive human killer that could kill 50 million to 100 million people.

In preparation, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has contracted for the production of two million doses of vaccine, with several million more on the way, as well as millions of doses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu. This week, Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, called bird flu "a time bomb waiting to go off."

Yet the science behind all the worry is questionable. It rests on the unproven claim that the avian flu will develop exactly like the strain that caused the flu pandemic of 1918. A March 2004 article in Science showed that the 1918 flu -- which infected close to a billion people and killed 50 million or more -- made the jump from birds to humans through a slight change in the structure of its hemagglutinins, the molecules by which the virus attaches itself to body cells. This mutation allowed the virus to kill more World War I soldiers than weapons did, effectively ending the war when forces on both sides became too sick to fight.

The current bird flu, however, has a different molecular structure than the 1918 bug. And though it has infected millions of birds, there is no direct evidence that it is about to mutate into a form that would transmit from human to human. In isolated cases, food handlers in Asia have gotten sick, but that doesn't mean that a wildly lethal mutation is about to occur.

As Wendy Orent points out in The New Republic, diseases that come from animals are often hard for humans to transmit. They lack the "essential characteristics" of virulent human infections -- they're not durable, or waterborne, or carried by hospital workers, or transmitted sexually.

Even if the worst-case scenario does occur and the virus mutates, there is no current indication that it will spread the way the Spanish flu did in 1918. That disease incubated in the First World War trenches before it spread across the world, infecting soldiers who were exhausted, packed together, and lacked access to hygiene. These conditions were an essential breeding ground for the virus.

Today, there is no way a huge number of people would be packed together in WWI-like conditions. Also, technology allows doctors to diagnose and isolate flu patients far more effectively.

Despite the lack of evidence about a huge avian flu pandemic, still we worry. That's a problem because fear causes stress, and stress is bad for your health. Numerous studies have shown the familiar link.

The American Heart Association has emphasized a correlation between stress and overeating and stress and smoking, both of which lead to heart disease. A 2000 study in the journal Stroke of more than 2,000 men showed that those suffering from anxiety or depression were three times as likely to suffer a fatal stroke. A study in Psychosomatic Medicine showed that Israeli women with an expressed fear of terrorism had twice the level of an enzyme that correlates with heart disease.

The association between worry and physical disease means that doctors have a responsibility not to upset their patients unnecessarily. Yet many doctors increase worry by ordering tests with little explanation or deploying their assistants to relay a patient's test result as an impersonal statistic. In the same way that public health officials alarm the public about unlikely health threats, some doctors dispense information in a way that alarms their patients about diseases they don't have.

I recall one patient who was filled with fear about West Nile virus, SARS, mad-cow disease, bird flu -- everything that came down the media pike. He extended this worry to every test a doctor ordered for him. When I took over his care, it took me a long time to learn how to inform him without scaring him. Gaining his trust meant being careful not to sound false alarms.

Marc Siegel is an internist and associate professor of medicine at New York University School of Medicine. His new book is False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear.

TORONTO (CP) - Military scientists working for the Canadian government have developed a number of innovative drugs they believe could target avian influenza, potentially helping to shore up the world's meagre defences against the threat of pandemic flu.

The federal government is now seeking scientists who could test the drugs outside North America, issuing a call for tenders for the work.

While a member of the team that developed most of the drugs expressed optimism about their potential, he and others caution that it would be several years before these drugs could be produced at commercial scale - if they are found to be effective and safe.

"It is indeed our hope that they will be valuable in a pandemic. However, these drugs are currently in the pre-clinical development phase," said Jonathan Wong, head of the molecular biology group of the chemical and biological defence section of Defence Research and Development Canada.

"They will need to undergo stringent clinical testing and regulatory approval process."

DRDC is the research arm of the Canadian military. The work was done at the agency's high-level biosecurity laboratory housed at CFB Suffield in Alberta.

The need for new flu drugs is acute. Currently there are only four produced commercially, two of which are not effective against the H5N1 avian flu subtype that experts fear is poised to trigger the first pandemic since the Hong Kong flu of 1968.

A leading Canadian antiviral expert Dr. Fred Aoki called the work "very Star Wars-like ideas (that) nonetheless deserve to be looked at."

"Everybody keeps talking about the need for something other than the drugs we've currently got for flu," said Aoki, who is based at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

"Maybe we'll find in that some way to gain control over what's a pretty ominous prospect for all of us."

The tender call, which closes Sept. 29, sets an upper limit of $240,000 for the work. It stipulates that it must be done in the parts of the world where H5N1 viruses are endemic.

It solicits bids to test "novel gene-based antiviral drugs" to see if they are effective against H5N1. The aim is to test the usefulness of the drugs both as treatment once infection has occurred and as prophylactic agents - drugs that prevent infection despite exposure.

The contract call said studies in animals have indicated that the drugs are "very effective against a number of exotic viral diseases including ebola, alphavirus infection and non-avian influenza."

Wong, who answered questions about the project via e-mail, said most of the drugs were developed by scientists at DRDC, though one was developed by an unnamed U.S. industry partner.

"We think that these drugs will be extremely effective against the influenza virus because animal studies conducted at DRDC Suffield have shown that these drugs protect mice against laboratory strains of influenza A virus.

"Because these drugs are broad-spectrum, we have reasons to believe that these drugs will work very well against bird flu."

The drugs fall into two main classes. Some are immunomodulators, drugs that help the immune system fight off invading viruses. Others are virus-interfering oligonucleotides, which inhibit the ability of viruses to replicate in the body by suppressing their production of key proteins.

Aoki expressed more excitement about the latter than the former, saying to his knowledge immunomodulators - which stimulate production of interferon, one of the immune system's weapons - haven't worked all that well in test tube studies against milder forms of influenza.

And the CEO and scientific officer of an organization called the International Consortium on Antivirals, based at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., also expressed some skepticism about this work.

"The problem with all the molecules in that category is how to get them into cells," said Jeremy Carver, a biophysicist.

"There's a whole approach to new drugs either using RNA interferons - these are all in this category, although some of them can be immune stimulating. But the problem is to deliver them."

© The Canadian Press 2005

Ottawa — Industry Canada has frozen federal financing for research projects by an Ontario biotechnology firm pending the outcome of an investigation into the company's agreement to pay $350,000 in lobbying fees to former Liberal cabinet minister David Dingwall, government sources say.

The move is part of a much broader probe of about 22 high-tech companies that may have hired unregistered lobbyists, or allegedly paid improper contingency fees to lobbyists to help secure federal financing under Ottawa's controversial Technology Partnership Canada program.

Bioniche, based in Belleville, Ont., recently admitted to Industry Canada that it agreed in May of 2000 to pay Mr. Dingwall a "success fee" of $350,000, the government sources said.

The agreement said the fee was to be paid to Mr. Dingwall's lobbying firm, Wallding International, if Bioniche was successful in obtaining federal financing worth at least $15-million under the TPC program.

Bioniche in fact secured TPC financing totalling $17.2-million in 2001.

The investigation centres on whether Mr. Dingwall actually received any or all of the "success fee."

It violates the terms of TPC contracts if companies pay contingency fees to lobbyists to help them obtain TPC financing.

Mr. Dingwall, who is now the president of the Royal Canadian Mint, a patronage appointment made by former prime minister Jean Chrétien in 2003, said in a brief written statement yesterday that he has not violated the Lobbyist Registration Act and has not contravened post-employment codes of conduct for public office holders.

Mr. Dingwall is travelling and does not want to be interviewed, said Gloria McArter, his executive assistant.

The former Nova Scotia MP was Mr. Chrétien's public works minister and then health minister before being defeated in the 1997 election.

Bioniche officials said their original written agreement to pay lobbying fees to Mr. Dingwall was amended by a verbal agreement after the biotech company learned that contingency fees to lobbyists were forbidden.

Mr. Dingwall, in lobbyist registration documents he filed with Industry Canada in 2003, said specifically he had a contingency fee agreement as Bioniche's advocate to secure TPC financing. The company was developing a bladder-cancer treatment for humans and a food-safety vaccine.

Bioniche officials said yesterday that they could not talk about the lobbying issue because of the investigation. But in an interview last month, Patrick Montpetit, the company's chief financial officer, suggested that Bioniche had been blindsided by the lobbyist registration documents Mr. Dingwall filed.

"Yes, there is this registration issue with Mr. Dingwall that caught us with our pants down," Mr. Montpetit said.

Meanwhile, Industry Canada has stopped making payments to Bioniche for research and development work that the company has already carried out under the terms of the TPC financing agreements.

The multiyear agreements normally would have the company receiving federal cheques as it reached milestones. The federal government would recover its investment with profit in the future if and when innovative products are brought to market.

Industry Minister David Emerson said yesterday that forensic audits discovered that four companies had violated TPC contract provisions related to the hiring of lobbyists. One of the four has agreed to pay back to the government the equivalent of the contingency fee that was paid to the lobbyist. The other three have been given 30 days to rectify matters.

Mr. Emerson did not identify the four companies, but said "the fact that these companies breached the terms of their signed contracts is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."

He also said 22 other companies require additional audit work.

Mr. Emerson said in a telephone interview TPC's problem with lobbyists being paid contingency fees can be traced back largely to a small number of lobbyists lacking "acceptable ethics."

The minister said he's harsher on the lobbyists than the companies. "I'm guessing that a lot of companies didn't even know they were in violation . . . I'd be less generous in terms of the lobbyists because it was their job to know."

When asked about the involvement of any former cabinet ministers or any specific lobbyists, Mr. Emerson said he wouldn't comment. "I don't want to comment on any specific names."

Mr. Emerson said he expects the government will be able to collect all or most of the money that was paid in commissions to TPC clients. He said he couldn't estimate how much that would be.

The problem of high-tech firms using unregistered lobbyists and paying contingency fees for TPC contracts is not new. Industry Canada froze payments to four British Columbia companies last year after The Globe and Mail reported they had paid more than $2-million in contingency fees to one particular unregistered lobbyist. The department eventually worked out agreements with the companies to reduce their TPC financing by sums equal to the contingency fees.

Industry Canada used two outside audit teams — Kroll Lindquist Avey and Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton — to take a broad look at TPC projects and the lobbying issue.

However, a government source says the outside audit teams found it difficult to determine from the TPC files how decisions were made as to which companies and projects would receive federal financing and which would be rejected.

One document was found, however, that candidly said: "little or no documentation is kept regarding the decision process."

TPC has an annual budget of about $300-million. Critics have called it little more than a subsidy program because the rate of repayment has been so low.

The Office of the Auditor-General hopes to complete its own examination of the program next year to determine what benefit it has been to Canadians over the years.

Mr. Emerson announced Tuesday that TPC will be replaced by a new program next April, to be called the Transformative Technologies Program, or TTP.

TTP will take over the TPC budget and do much the same thing in terms of financing innovative technologies, but there will be less emphasis on repayments, federal officials say.

With a report from Simon Tuck

Drug consortium looking for $70 million to fuel new flu drug development
Canada.com - September 23, 2005
By Helen Branswell

PETERBOROUGH, Ont. (CP) - Scientists working to spur development of new antiviral drugs called on the federal government Friday to commit $70 million over seven years to build up the meagre pharmaceutical arsenal against pandemic influenza.

The CEO of the International Consortium on Antivirals called the proposed investment "peanuts" in comparison to the economic devastation a flu pandemic could wreak.

"We're talking about multi-billion dollar impacts on the economy if this happens as predicted by the (mathematical) modellers," said Jeremy Carver, who also serves as director general of the consortium, which goes by the acronym ICAV.

"So an investment of $70 million over seven years - $10 million a year - is peanuts. This is obviously an insurance policy that needs to be purchased."

Canada estimates even a relative mild pandemic could cost the country between $5 billion and $38 billion in lost productivity.

The group, founded in Canada in 2004, is made up of experts from 16 countries dedicated to sharing expertise and resources to discover and develop new drugs to treat viral diseases. Its nearly 100 university-based scientists are working on therapies for influenza, HIV, hepatitis C and other viruses.

International scientists in the group are also seeking financial support from their home governments, with the aim of putting together a war chest to accelerate investment in a field of drug development that has languished.

"It's going to be in the hundreds of millions, once we get it all put together. And that's what we're going to need," Carver said.

The scientists, attending a three-day meeting at Trent University in Peterborough, Ont., said development of new influenza treatments cannot be left to the private sector, which has not - until recently - seen much prospect for healthy returns on the sale of flu drugs.

There are currently only four flu drugs marketed: amantadine and rimantadine, which are called adamantane drugs; and oseltamivir (Tamiflu) and zanamivir (Relenza), which are neuraminidase inhibitors. (Rimantadine is not sold in Canada.)

The former class is off-patent and cheap, but the drugs are rarely used outside of hospitals and nursing homes. And the latter class of drugs, both still under patent protection, has not performed to expectations since they were brought to market in the late 1990s.

"What we have seen in the past - even with oseltamivir and Relenza - for epidemic flus, the companies have not been pushing very hard and GSK had almost pulled out already," said Dr. Ab Osterhaus, a leading virologist from the Erasmus Medical Centre in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

GlaxoSmithKline, or GSK, makes Relenza, which to date has not benefited to a significant degree from the rising level of concern that a flu pandemic with the H5N1 avian flu strain may be brewing in Southeast Asia.

Sales of Tamiflu - made by Hoffman-La Roche - have surged, with more than 25 governments around the globe rushing to stockpile the drug as a first line of defence in a pandemic, for use in the period before vaccines can be developed and administered.

Although a few countries - most notably Germany and the United States - have added Relenza to their stockpiles, the drug's historic poor sales mean it is not made in vast amounts.

While the current pandemic fears have revived interest in influenza drugs, scientists attending the meeting are skeptical pharmaceutical firms would see much advantage in developing and bringing new flu medications to market.

But they suggested new drugs will be needed, particularly in light of concerns that flu viruses could develop resistance to neuraminidase inhibitors if the drugs are used more widely.

Flu viruses easily develop resistance to the adamantane drugs, which target a different part of the virus than neuraminidase inhibitors. A study published this week showed an explosion of adamantane resistance in human flu strains since 2000 and it's been known for some time these drugs don't work against the H5N1 avian flu.

Carver admitted there are differing views about how quickly resistance might develop to the neuraminidase inhibitors, but if large numbers of people start taking the drugs, the viruses will be under pressure to evolve in ways that allow them to evade the activity of the drugs.

"If you're going to use the neuraminidase inhibitors worldwide at enormous levels, there will be pressure towards resistance," Osterhaus agreed.

Carver said the consortium has gotten a good response - but no firm commitments - to its pitch for funding to kick start flu drug development.

© The Canadian Press 2005

The stockpiling of existing antiviral drugs won't be enough to slow the spread of a global flu pandemic, a group of international scientists is to warn today.

The International Consortium on Anti-Virals (ICAV), which is hosting a three-day conference at Trent University in Peterborough this weekend, plans to issue an urgent call for Ottawa and other nations to help develop a new line of antiviral drugs, as fears mount that existing medicines won't be effective in fighting a flu pandemic expected to kill 58,000 Canadians and between two million and seven million people globally.

As the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus continues to spread through countries in Southeast Asia — including Indonesia, where alarm increased yesterday after another human case involving an 8-year-old boy was confirmed — viral experts say governments need to step up funding in antiviral research.

Their warning comes on the heels of two studies published online by The Lancet this week, one showing vaccines are less effective at protecting the elderly from flu viruses than had been thought, and another showing some of the antiviral drugs commonly used to treat the flu are losing their power.

One study carried out by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which analyzed 7,000 samples of flu virus collected around the world, found the rate of resistance to a class of antiviral drugs known as adamantanes — drugs called amantadine and rimantadine — increased from 0.4 per cent in 1994 to 12 per cent last year. Resistance in some countries, such as China, exceeded 70 per cent, suggesting the two drugs are likely to be ineffective in a pandemic.

Scientists are now worried that osteltamivir, or Tamiflu, the antiviral drug that governments worldwide are stockpiling for a possible pandemic, could also become ineffective if misused.

"Tamiflu is not going to be enough, and most likely the pandemic virus will become resistant to the drug when it starts being used widely," said biophysicist Jeremy Carver, the CEO and scientific officer of ICAV. "We're going to need a second line and there's good science in Canada around potential alternative antivirals. We need to get busy putting the money into developing those."

Carolyn Bennett, minister of state for public health, said yesterday the federal government recognizes the need to be ahead of new viruses.

"We agree that we need innovation in new therapies and intervention of new viruses," she said, adding it may eventually mean directly funding research for antivirals or increasing the budget of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Bird flu has killed 64 people in Asia since 2003 and has since been found in birds in Russia and Europe.

As part of pandemic preparedness plans, countries have been aggressively buying antiviral medicines and contracting to purchase an experimental vaccine against the bird flu strain.

In addition to stockpiling Tamiflu, the United States has ordered $100 million worth of the vaccine as a first wave of protection if the H5N1 strain sparks an epidemic. Ottawa has purchased 9.6 million doses of Tamiflu but has shown no indication of buying bulk supplies.

Aggie Adamcyzk, spokeswoman for the Public Health Agency of Canada, said the government has committed $34 million to develop a mock pandemic vaccine of H5N1, but even if the virus mutates into a pandemic strain, "the stockpiling of a vaccine is probably not going to be entirely useful."

Torstar News Service

For Immediate Release

As the International Consortium on Anti-Virals
symposium opens today, animal protection groups call for:

• preventive measures to combat viruses
• research into cause of pandemic diseases
• caution in funding fear-driven research
• public funds to go to public health agencies with a broader public mandate, preventive programmes and no profit motive

Why are animal protection groups interested in this conference?
Because heightened and irrational fear of pandemic diseases
have serious negative impacts on domestic animals, wildlife, the
environment and, as Dr. Marc Siegel points out, also on humans.

Toronto, September 24, 2005: Coincident with the release of Dr. Marc Siegel's newest book, False Alarm, The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear, the International Consortium on Anti-Virals (ICAV), Trent University in Peterborough, an institution with virtually no track record in this field, begins a public symposium and scientific workshop to discuss "the urgent need and will for a global solution to emerging pandemic disease."

In a review of Dr. Siegel's book, David Corn, Washington Editor of The Nation writes, "Most importantly, Siegel exposes how government officials, the media, and the pharmaceutical industry exploit--and spread--fear for profit and power."

The ICAV's press releases aptly demonstrate the premise of Dr. Siegel's book. The September 15 ICAV media release titled – Bird Flu is Just the Beginning … International Scientists gather at Trent University to Combat Global Pandemic leave the public and government with the impression that a pandemic is imminent and inevitable.

However, no real evidence is produced by ICAV to back the assertion and to justify enormous expenditures of public research dollars to combat the mythical enemy.

In the September 15 press release, ICAV states, "The threat of pandemic influenza or the emergence of other viral disease outbreaks can not be predicted with any temporal certainty. Avian or bird flu is just the beginning of a call to action."

This assertion is challenged by Dr. Marc Siegel in an editorial released across North America and is available on line. In it, Dr. Siegel states, "The avian flu virus, or H5N1, has killed millions of birds in China and Russia, either directly or because they've been destroyed to prevent its spread. The virus has infected around 112 humans, fewer than 60 of whom have died. Despite the small numbers, public health…and the media have loudly sounded the alarm: Avian influenza is about to transform into a massive human killer that could kill 50 million to 100 million people."

Dr. Siegel continues, "Yet the science behind all the worry is questionable. It rests on the unproven claim that avian flu will develop exactly like the strain that caused the flu pandemic of 1918…The current bird flu however, has a different molecular structure than the 1918 bug. And though it has infected millions of birds, there is no direct evidence that it is about to mutate into a form that would transmit from human to human. In isolated cases food handlers in Asia have gotten sick, but that doesn't mean that a wildly lethal mutation is about to occur."

"We know that avian flu and SARS can largely be prevented," said Liz White, Director of Animal Alliance of Canada. "Animal husbandry practices both in animal markets where SARS got its foothold and in intensive chicken and turkey agricultural operations where avian flu outbreaks occur are considered the cause. Instead of spending money to change agricultural practices to prevent a pandemic, we frighten people about a possible pandemic and then contribute millions of tax dollars to the private sector to develop a treatment."

Barry MacKay, Canadian representative for the Animal Protection Institute has had years of experience dealing with people's fears of wildlife and diseases such as rabies and West Nile Virus. "Frequently I have conversations with people who express irrational fears towards animals. West Nile Virus is a case in point. The fear off being bitten by an infected mosquito propels government agencies to spray with Malathion and other extremely dangerous pesticides – dangerous to human and animal health and the environment."

"As a wildlife rehabilitator and someone who has handled rabies vector species, I am very familiar with the fear-mongering that affects both humans and wildlife," said Donna DuBreuil, spokesperson for the Ontario Wildlife Coalition. "Most troubling is the expenditure of public dollars researching wildlife diseases. For example, the DNA cluster project, the precursor to the International Consortium has received public funds to research raccoon rabies even though it is the rarest wildlife disease in North America to affect humans. And now, in its press release, the ICAV states it will require ‘an investment of $70 million over seven years' for what many see as dubious research that will divert badly-needed public funds from critical health care and environmental needs. Money for these ventures often comes from government foundations where there are no provisions for performance audits."

-30-

For further information please contact:

Liz White, Animal Alliance of Canada - 416-462-9541(p) or 416-809-4371(cell)
Barry MacKay, Animal Protection Institute - 905-472-9731(p)
Donna DuBreiul, Ontario Wildlife Coalition - 613-282-3755(cell)

PETERBOROUGH, Ont (CP) - Formulas for new, inexpensive influenza drugs that could expand the world's tiny arsenal of weapons against pandemic flu are gathering dust because the pharmaceutical industry isn't interested in developing them, scientists say.

They believe governments should fund the testing and development of the drugs, side-stepping big pharma and bringing them to market as cheap generic medications.

And they point to the story of Relenza - one of only four flu drugs currently sold - as evidence public-sector involvement will be needed if crucial new flu drugs are ever going to hit pharmacy shelves.

Mark von Itzstein, who led the team that invented Relenza, says he has three compounds that are ready to be tested in animals and could be available on a commercial basis in three to five years for about $10 a treatment course. (Relenza and the more popular Tamiflu sell for about $55 in Canada.)

But under the existing profit-driven model of pharmaceutical production, where the next sexual dysfunction drug is more highly prized than a new life-saving antibiotic, cheap flu medications simply aren't on the priority list.

"What company would really be interested in developing another anti-influenza drug? Who's going to pay hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it to market?" von Itzstein asks with a shrug.

The Australian scientist is executive director of the Institute for Glycomics at Griffith University in Queensland. He has turned for help in advancing his drugs to the International Consortium on Antivirals, which hosted a symposium at Trent University in Peterborough over the weekend.

The year-old Canadian-led initiative, which goes by the acronym ICAV, originally set out to fund university-based research in antiviral drugs - a quest inspired by SARS. Its goal was to push into production drugs the world needs but which pharmaceutical companies don't see as sufficiently lucrative to pursue.

ICAV's chief executive officer, Jeremy Carver, thought that step might be three or four years down the road. But when he started making contact with scientists around the world, he discovered at least three teams have influenza drugs that are stalled for lack of commercial interest.

"They haven't taken it any further because there's no one to license it, there's no opportunity to get the funds to do the expensive development part," he explains.

Carver says von Itzstein is willing to turn over his compounds to ICAV if the consortium can find a way to get the drugs tested and then made, if testing proves they work.

ICAV is trying to get buy-in from governments around the world, starting with Canada. It has asked the federal government for $70 million over seven years to promote development of antiviral drugs for a number of diseases, including influenza, HIV and hepatitis C.

Despite the dire need for new flu drugs, the pharmaceutical industry is unlikely to bring them to market, Carver says. "The evidence is right there under our noses, isn't it? Relenza."

Zanamivir - sold as Relenza - was the first of a new class of flu drugs called neuraminidase inhibitors. The drugs cut the length and severity of a bout of influenza by blocking the virus's ability to spread through the respiratory tract.

Neuraminidase inhibitors are the only flu drugs believed to work against the H5N1 avian flu strain decimating poultry flocks across Southeast Asia. H5N1 is resistant to the older class of flu medications, the adamantane drugs known as amantadine and rimantadine.

Von Itzstein's work was funded by Australian drug company Biota Holdings; it licensed zanamivir to GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which brought Relenza to market in 1999.

It was followed in short order by oseltamivir (sold as Tamiflu), a drug developed by Gilead Sciences and licensed to Swiss drug maker Hoffman-La Roche.

But neither product made a big impact on the market, except in Japan, where Tamiflu is widely used.

Sales were particularly sluggish for Relenza, likely due to its method of administration. While Tamiflu is sold in pill form, Relenza is administered via an inhaler, like asthma drugs.

By most accounts, GSK virtually abandoned the drug. (Both Biota and Gilead have launched legal suits against GSK and Roche respectively, charging them with failing to adequately promote the products.)

Growing fears that a pandemic may be brewing have sent sales of Tamiflu soaring, with wealthy governments joustling to join the lengthening queue to buy supplies for national stockpiles.

But Tamiflu is a difficult and time-consuming drug to make, limiting how quickly Roche can scale up production to meet burgeoning demand.

Von Itzstein says the same isn't true for Relenza, which is made in fewer steps. Ramping up production of the drug should be easy, giving Relenza a second lease at life, he says.

"It seems to me here's a perfect opportunity. Relenza is a very good drug. It's an exceptionally good drug. And in my mind there is no reason why it should not be promoted."

But GSK has been slow to seize the opportunity and has nabbed only a small corner of the stockpiling market. Germany has bought 1.7 million treatment courses, France 200,000 and the United States 84,300.

Experts say Relenza is at least as good a drug as Tamiflu and may actually prove to be a better bet in the long run. For one thing, it is believed influenza viruses may have a harder time developing resistance to Relenza than to Tamiflu.

Because of that fact, Von Itzstein says he hasn't given up hope for his drug. But he says it also underscores the need to accelerate work on other antivirals, to ensure the world has more options.

"Even two drugs is not enough," he insists. "We need new antivirals."

OTTAWA -- Former Liberal cabinet minister David Dingwall failed to register as a lobbyist for a Toronto pharmaceutical company, a lapse that prevented the firm from receiving $6.6-million in federal investment, government sources say.

The failure to register, as required by federal law, was an honest mistake, said Gloria McArter, Mr. Dingwall's executive assistant at the time. "I believe that was clerical error," she said.

The company, Lorus Therapeutics Inc., wants to forget the whole matter.

"It's over and done and we've moved on," said Bruce Rowlands, the senior vice-president for planning and public affairs.

Mr. Dingwall, who is president of the Royal Canadian Mint, was travelling Friday and was unavailable for an interview, said Ms. McArter, who continues to serve as his executive assistant at the Mint.

Mr. Dingwall's lobbying activities on behalf of another company are under scrutiny by Industry Canada.

The department froze federal financing to Bioniche Life Sciences Inc. of Belleville, Ont., pending the outcome of an investigation into the company's agreement to pay a $350,000 "success fee" to Mr. Dingwall and his lobbying firm, Wallding International.

The money was to be paid if Bioniche was successful in obtaining at least $15-million under the department's Technology Partnership Canada program, known as TPC.

The agreement between Mr. Dingwall and Lorus was different, a straight monthly fee for service, a government source says. There was no "success fee" or contingency fee or commission -- the types of fees that are prohibited under TPC rules.

However, if a company hires a lobbyist, the lobbyist must register publicly, stating that he or she is helping to obtain TPC investment financing.

Lorus does not want to discuss details of its arrangement with Mr. Dingwall, which ran for 13 months, ending in October of 2002.

"We do not want to be on the record in any way about Mr. Dingwall, his company or TPC," Mr. Rowlands said.

Late last year, Lorus was about to sign a financing contract with Industry Canada to receive $6.6-million for the development of a treatment for pancreatic cancer when Lorus and TPC officials discovered that Mr. Dingwall had failed to register as a lobbyist, a government source said.

A few federal officials were prepared to cut Lorus some slack, believing that Mr. Dingwall's lapse may have been an honest oversight. Mr. Dingwall and Wallding had registered as lobbyists for several other companies, they noted.

The issue remained under review until Aug. 23, a government source said, when Industry Minister David Emerson wrote to Lorus to say that the planned investment was off.

Ian Jack, a spokesman for Mr. Emerson, said the government would not comment on specific company proposals but that the minister had made a point of raising vigilance on those applications.

"The minister made it abundantly clear that he would have zero tolerance on breaches of the Lobbyists Registration Act and he communicated that quite clearly to his officials."

TPC has an annual budget of about $300-million, although critics have called it little more than a subsidy program. The program's repayment rate, which is typically based on royalties when research leads to a commercial success, has rarely climbed above 5 per cent of its annual budget.

Mr. Emerson, who says TPC helps get Canadian research to market that otherwise would be wasted, announced last week that the program would be replaced by a new program, to be called the Transformative Technologies Program, or TTP.

The new program will perform a similar function as TPC, but there will be less emphasis on evaluating the program on its repayment record.

Mr. Dingwall, a former MP from Cape Breton, was former prime minister Jean Chrétien's public works minister and then health minister until he was defeated in the 1997 election. He worked as a lobbyist in Ottawa until his appointment to the position at the Mint two years ago.

A government source said Mr. Dingwall was very active on behalf of Lorus in 2001 and 2002, setting up meetings between company officials and TPC, sending letters on the company's behalf to the minister's office and meeting with the deputy minister over lunch.

According to government records, Mr. Dingwall lobbied for TPC money on behalf of about a handful of technology companies. He registered as a lobbyist in each case, except Lorus.

Mr. Jack said Lorus, or other companies in that situation, are still eligible for government investments.

"If there's a good proposal and it meets all the criteria of the program, they'd be considered."

The International Consortium of Anti-Virals (ICAV) held its third symposium at Trent University over the weekend. This event brought together the who's who in the world of viruses. The current Asian outbreak of the Avian Influenza Virus, H5N1, was of particular interest. This virus has now killed two individuals from the same family, and another 8-year-old boy is currently being hospitalized in Indonesia.

The keynote speaker at the symposium, Albert Osterhaus, Department of Virology, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, explained to the symposium why the H5N1 virus is so dangerous to humanity. Osterhaus eloquently described the migratory paths of birds and explained that the virus has already reached the Netherlands. His slides showed how the virus has moved from Asia to Europe and possibly Africa.

The main message from Osterhaus was that the world is not prepared for dealing with this virus. If the virus mutates into a human pathogen, there is no country in the world prepared to handle the resulting crisis.

Jeremy Carver, the ICAV co-founder and CEO, is an honourary conjunct professor at Trent University and also a Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto. Carver organized the symposium with the goal of beginning dialogue about how humanity can better prepare itself for the coming pandemic. Many scientists at the symposium are in agreement that it is only a matter of time before the pandemic emerges, and some argue that the Indonesian outbreak is the start of the pandemic.

Dr. Eleanor Fish, Head of the Division of Cellular and Molecular Biology, Toronto General Research Institute, wants people to get angry. "I hope you get angry," she said. "No one is prepared, and you should be angry about that." That said, however, Canada is still more prepared than most other countries, after the experience with SARS in BC and Ontario several years ago. In addition, BC had its own outbreak of Avian flu that resulted in the culling of all poultry across the Lower Mainland.

Even so, Canada does not have enough production capacity to produce flu inoculations. In fact, the world only has enough production capacity for two percent of the population should a pandemic emerge. To further complicate matters, most production is in Europe and it is unlikely that any inoculations would make it outside of Europe if a pandemic started.

If the virus mutates into a human pathogen, there is no country in the world prepared to handle the resulting crisis.

There are two more complicating issues. First of all, since the vaccine is only able to grow inside fertilized eggs, if there is an outbreak and chickens have to be culled, where will the eggs come from? Secondly, since no scientist can predict what specific virus will emerge with what genetic make-up, a vaccine cannot be developed until the virus emerges. Once it does, it will take up to six months just to develop the vaccine, never mind producing enough for the over 6 billion individuals that roam this world.

ICAV is a non-profit organization whose purpose is to bring together government officials and scientists in the field of virology. Even so, Carver is a volunteer and he points out that their organization is not funded by government and has only received minimal funding from outside sources, including $5,000 from Merck pharmaceuticals for the last symposium held in Paris. Additionally, the Ontario government was to announce administrative funding for the organization on Friday.

"The scientific program [we are proposing] could be applied to other viruses," Carter told Arthur in an exclusive interview. There could be one drug for a set of viruses because this set of viruses uses the same human enzyme, so if you can block this enzyme, you can cure a number of human viruses.

Carver admits that they focus on the pandemic side of things. But, he says, "it's genuine, not a device" to get more money.

However, on closer investigation, the symposium agenda did not reflect any references to the DNA Cluster Project.

At first glance, it appears that Carver's connections to Trent and the DNA cluster project are related to the symposium. However, on closer investigation, the symposium agenda did not reflect any references to the DNA Cluster Project. It is true that Carver worked for Trent as a consultant when first proposing the DNA cluster project to the City of Peterborough; however, Carver told Arthur that the symposium was held at Trent for reasons other than the project. "A pandemic has broader issues: not just hard science, but also how it gets applied. Trent is a university with a broad [multi-disciplinary] approach. A small university can get things done. [Besides,] I live only forty minutes away," says Carver.

One group was noticeably absent from the symposium: the major pharmaceutical corporations that would presumably manufacture a vaccine should one be needed.
Carver lamented this fact. "We are trying to change the whole economic system when it comes to pharmaceuticals." ICAV wants differential pricing and intellectual property rights subject to each university's own policies. Carver's hope is that by retaining certain property rights, other less fashionable diseases, such as HIV or Hepatitis, that have been ignored by government or the pharmaceuticals, will benefit from the research into other more common viruses such as influenza.

"We are trying to change the whole economic system when it comes to pharmaceuticals"

Carver believes that Trent is an excellent location to host the symposium. A cross-discipline perspective is important he says. "Injecting more science [into the humanities] will help and more science needs to be injected by non-science disciplines. We need a full spectrum analysis of ideas from all disciplines."

Carver points out that the lack of funding for the humanities is an "impact of the Harris years. It will take us decades to undo the damage to the perception of education. Universities are not job shops."

Andrew Fox
Matthew Martin

This past weekend, Trent University played host to a scientific symposium on looming global pandemics, coordinated by the International Consortium on Anti-Virals (ICAV). Maybe you already knew that; likely, you didn't. Little mention of the international convention attracting over 130 of the world's top scientists and academics was made in Trent's media until the last day of the gathering.

When the word finally trickled out regarding the ICAV, Arthur received phone call ‘tip-offs' from two separate, fairly predictable voices, tossing around questions regarding why this event would be held at a university such as Trent, what academic relevance it had and whose interests it was serving. Could it be that the administration's lack of local publicity is in efforts to avoid any embarassing confrontations with angry student protestors amidst the schmooze of the event? Could this hush-hush consortium, sharing primary players and holding similar principles, be another way of propping up the controversial DNA Cluster project? With the shovel in the ground and still a shortage of funding, could this international symposium be an attempt to attract that elusive private partner?

The university's silence has become a traditional cause for concern. The question, with its ensuing response, is obvious, in a not so much painful as boring sort of way: why would a university with a steep financial dedication to its public relations be so reluctant to show off an event that is supposed to be a wonderful thing?

For the past two weeks, Arthur has been contacting the Office of Student Affairs to ask questions regarding a proposed legal agreement between the university and the student associations that looks to us like nothing but serious irreversible damage to student political organizing. The OSA has refused to comment, as the Director is on vacation (granted, the Director must be the only one who knows anything about the deal that would forevermore define the relationship between Trent administration and student associations, the deal that student associations are deciding on right now as she is conveniently unavailable to answer questions).

Over a month ago, the TCSA requested from the university administration a letter outlining the reasoning for establishing such an agreement at this point - they've yet to receive anything besides the silent treatment.

In an attempt to be fully informed, to get the ‘other side' of the news story, we too tried to no avail to engage the administration in dialogue. Perhaps there is justification for the university administration to assert a permanent position of authority over student associations; perhaps there is good reason for student associations to legally bind themselves to be completely beholden to the university administration. Yet, in sharing nothing, the university has not provided us with any of these reasons. The mystery remains unsolved.

Again, the university's refusal to provide information translates into apprehension and suspicion, and yet it seems so predictable, so familiar, so 1999, so 2004.

In recent years, a status quo has surfaced that automatically assumes a silence from the administration regarding important decisions on its future. A very messy history has established this standard, and demonstrated that the lack of willingness to engage in dialogue is indeed commonplace, and quite often indicative of a questionable agenda. It now seems that the Trent community is becoming less shocked and outraged by the university administration's silence, and a culture of complacency and expectation of shady communication is being entrenched.

This now means that little from the administration's end seems to create a noteworthy shock effect. The Board of Governors felt it completely acceptable to approve the DNA Cluster project in a closed session last year, without fearing a backlash from the group of concerned students and community members who had been voicing concern precisely about the lack of transparency surrounding the project. The Office of Student Affairs now feels it completely acceptable to embark on an agreement that would significantly alter the relationship between the university and the various levels of student government, without feeling accountable for justifying any of it in the face of inquiries.

This past May, the McGuinty government received high praise from university communities across the province for proposing legislation that would make universities subject to the Freedom of Information Act. Such legislation, if properly implemented and enforced, would make Trent University administration accountable to the public and unable to maintain its silence on where the university is headed ą as early as the beginning of next year. One can hope that this new potential legislative victory will shake the community expectations back into a paradigm that demands more, raising the bar of what is the norm for administration accountability.

In the meanwhile, it's simple enough, here is our offering to the university administrators: let's talk, okay? It's a new tactic to try, as the old one is becoming so very passe: feign some proper communication skills, and then we'll hwwave no reason to believe you're hiding something dramatic and maliciously evil. It would at least make us less irritated all the time.