avian influenza strain H5N1 appears in gold, growing in a laboratory culture of dog kidney cells (green). Photo courtesy of the CDC Public Health Image Library

Etopia Media Medical News Network (EMMNN)’s most-recent story, first published here on February 22, 2005, "An avian flu retrospective," has proven to be so popular, especially among readers of the Yahoo Finance Chiron Message Board, that EMMNN has decided to follow it up with a "A Chiron retrospective," reprising some articles about this important bio-medical company and bringing updating one of them.

In the most-recent article published on the California Politics Today web site, "Public interest lawyer asks for public hearing to discuss proposed reforms for ICOC," Berkeley-based public interest attorney Charles Halpern is quoted as saying that "of the people currently in place, the Vice Chair, Dr. Penhoet, is deep into the conflict-of-interest problem and would have to take some steps either to divest and resign from some of the positions he now holds, or else resign from the ICOC [Independent Citizens’ Oversight Committee] Vice Chairmanship."

Edward Penhoet, Vice Chair of the ICOC, co-founded Chiron Corporation in 1981.

Here are three articles dealing with Chiron Corporation that appeared on the Etopia Media Medical News Network web site during October, 2004:

10-5-04: Absent a reprieve from U.K.'s Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, Chiron will destroy its inventory of flu vaccine, says its president, Howard Pien, after "Britain's FDA" suspends its license to manufacture Fluvirin®

10-12-04: De-certified regular flu maker Chiron got a contract with federal agency to make and test H5N1 (bird flu) virus as part of the national response to a possible global avian influenza pandemic and hasn't said if its decertification will interfere with carrying it out

(There was an unanswered question at the end of this October 12, 2004, EMMNN article:

"EMMNN contacted Chiron Corporation this afternoon to inquire about whether the de-certification of their flu vaccine manufacturing plant in Liverpool, U.K., would in any way negatively impact their ability to carry out "the production and clinical testing of an investigational vaccine based on a strain of avian influenza, H5N1," which they had undertaken in May, 2004, as part of the nation's coordinated effort to protect itself against the threat of a possible avian influenza pandemic. By the close of business today, there had been no response. If and when there is one, EMMNN readers and listeners will be the first to know."

More than a month later, on November 15, 2004, this question was answered by Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), at a press briefing reported on by CIDRAP News.

At that briefing, Dr. Fauci said that "Chiron is making pilot lots of H5N1 vaccine in a plant in Liverpool, England, but it's not the same plant where contamination problems doomed nearly half of the US flu vaccine supply this fall."

The irony of contracting with the same company whose hygienic practices resulted in scrapping up to 48 million doses of "regular" flu vaccine for this year’s flu season to produce pilot lots of a vaccine intended to stave off a global avian flu pandemic was also noted by self-described "lying socialist weasel" (again, with the irony) Bryan Zepp Jamieson in an article entitled "H5N1--Unfortunately, that’s not the new Hyundai sports model," coincidentally published on the same day as the corresponding EMMNN article.)

10-31-04: U.N. plans avian influenza summit in Geneva for November 11th, while U.S. hires trouble-plagued Chiron to cook up test vaccines against deadly avian influenza pandemic

Efforts to contact Dr. Penhoet to get his side of the conflict-of-interest story, which have included leaving voice mail at the number given for him at his University of California, Berkeley, School of Public Health, Professor Emeritus of Health Policy & Management web page; asking for him at Chiron Corporation’s world headquarters in Emeryville (also the temporary home of the ICOC/CIRM), where a Chiron employee asked, rhetorically, "is this a Chiron question or a Penhoet question?"; and waiting for Julie Buckner, spokesperson for the ICOC/CIRM, to make good on her promise to try to contact him for such an interview, have thus far availed nothing.

Which is not to say that notice has not been taken. At 1:35 am on Thursday, February 24, 2005, less that two days after the publication of "An avian flu retrospective" with its two mentions of Chiron’s involvement in flu issues, someone at Chiron stopped by at the EMMNN web site to take a look at that report.