Yet another professor in Japan has acknowledged accepting funds from the Tamiflu maker while publicly disputing claims that the flu pill causes abnormal behavior. This come to light just after the health minister banned Tamiflu for teenagers amid a growing number of suicides, some involving leaps off balconies. The government had been widely criticized for dismissing any link and not acting sooner.

The latest disclosure involves Takahsi Igarashi, a University of Tokyo professor who backed the health ministry at a government meeting by downplaying the links between Tamiflu and abnormal behavior in young people.He received donations from Chugai Pharmaceutical, which is owned by Roche and denies any link, university officials said Tuesday.

Between 2000 and 2006, Chugai gave $25,000 to help fund a pediatrics course taught by Igarashi. At a January 2006 meeting of a health ministry research panel on drug safety, Igarashi supported the ministry’s position on cases of young people who had killed themselves after taking Tamiflu. “There is no evidence to believe that Tamiflu was the cause” of the deaths, he told the panel. He now says his opinion wasn’t affected by the donations.

Over a five-year period, Chugai also gave about $85,000 in grants to a a pediatric professor at Yokohama City University, whose studies of 2,800 for the health ministry found no difference in the behavior of kids who took Tamiflu and those who didn’t.

Most likely, this is all a misunderstanding. After all, researchers receive grants from drugmakers on a regular basis. Nothing abnormal in that, is there?

Further reading….
Mainichi Daily News on the latest disclosure;
Japan Times story about the other researcher;
International Society of Drug Bulletins alert about Tamiflu;
Japan’s Health Ministry Says No Causal Link Exists.[tags]Chugai, Conflicts Of Interest, Roche, Tamiflu[/tags]