In an interesting turn of events, I was informed that the Center for Biosecurity at UPMC has resigned its membership from the Alliance for Biosecurity. In part, this move was necessary to combat the perception that the Center was fronting for Big Pharma, in particular the accusations that Dr. Tara O'Toole (former head of the Center, now the DHS S&T Director) was a de facto lobbyist (or at the least, apologist) for Big Pharma interests. Now it seems clear that the Alliance was in fact a lobbying organization and the Center was a member of the Alliance, the Center's leadership was not registered as a lobbyists. At the least, the membership of the alliance is certainly a collection of Big Pharma interests.
I believe that this is a good thing for the Center. If it wants to be viewed as a non-partisan and unbiased research center, then it needs to stay independent of industry concerns. It may be, as the Center's letter claims, that the Alliance has made "strong analytical argument[s]" for the purpose of improving US biodefense initiatives, but let's not kid ourselves. At the end of the day, it benefitted them as well as the overall biodefense readiness. And that's okay - lobbyists are supposed to provide analytical arguments on complex policy issues with the understanding that positive legislative action could benefit their clients. Lobbyists don't just show up with a bag of money and a big smile and say, "hey Congressman, how about some love?" (okay, maybe some of them do...)
The Center has done some solid research on a particularly complex issue, and while I don't agree with everything they've developed and I still continue to harbor feelings of mistrust and skepticism about Dr. O'Toole, I do in fact view this move as a positive one (although I would have advised the current CEO to have avoided all the drama about the Alliance's "good efforts"). I hope it can put this issue behind itself and move on to critically examine and report on biosecurity initiatives, without the albatross of industry interests around its neck.
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