Scientists who Advised Government During Covid did not Reveal they had Received More than £200m in Grants from one of the World’s Biggest Pharma Investors, Report Says
By RYAN HOOPER, CRIME CORRESPONDENT and DAVID JARVIS
Scientific advisors to the Government during the Covid pandemic failed to reveal they received over £200million in grants from one of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical investors, a report reveals.
Twenty-six members of the influential Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), which helped shape lockdown rules, did not register the research funding from the Wellcome Trust in an apparent conflict of interest.
The report by the campaign group UsForThem analysed research data from The Wellcome Trust, which is largely funded by its investment portfolio and links to the pharmaceutical industry.
It claims the 26 members received at least £210 million in grants from Wellcome between 2018 and 2026 which were not declared on the SAGE register of participants’ interests (Ropi) with £175 million provided during the key Covid years of 2020 and 2021 alone.
Analysis by the Mail on Sunday of publicly-available information shows one grant recipient was Professor Neil Ferguson, one of the biggest advocates for vaccines and whose advice to Prime Minister Boris Johnson led to the UK lockdown in March 2020, and who famously resigned as a government adviser two months later after it emerged he broke rules to meet his married lover.
Prof Ferguson declared in the register that he was involved with a ‘Vaccine Impact Modelling Consortium’, but did not mention Wellcome anywhere.
Yet he was either the lead applicant or sponsored other applications for grants worth £5.6million including a £1.25 million grant looking at influenza-like viruses in Vietnam, according to the analysis of Wellcome’s figures.
Of the 149 SAGE members during the Covid crisis 38 applied for funding or supported other applications to the Wellcome Trust, the UK’s biggest charity.
Vaccines expert Professor Gavin Screaton received more than £26 million in nine Wellcome grants according to its records including one directly related to Covid-19 but these grants do not appear on the SAGE register
Among others who it is claimed failed to register research funding is Professor Susan Michie, who had claimed restrictions such as social distancing and face masks should stay forever to reduce long-term pressure on the NHS
Of the 38, just 12 declared their relationship – leaving 26 who failed to do so.
The SAGE register of participants’ interests is publicly available as is Wellcome Trust data on projects it has helped to fund, giving full visibility on which SAGE members have complied with the rules.
Ben Kingsley, UsForThem’s legal director, said: ‘SAGE members were told very clearly to disclose their research funding relationships precisely because they were in a position to influence public health decisions that affected millions of people during a national emergency.
‘The fact that some members appear not to have respected those requirements raises serious questions about transparency and potential conflicts of interest.
‘If the Government wants to maintain the public’s trust, then we have to be sure that the advice given by its most senior advisers is free from risks of bias or conflicts, and this means those advisers need to be completely transparent with the public about their relationships with private organisations such as the Wellcome Trust.
‘A good number of the members of SAGE grasped that fundamental point very clearly but our research shows others didn’t, and one has to ask: ‘Why?’
SAGE’s register states participants must highlight any commercial interests, research interests, and whether any funding has been secured in the past or currently.
A fortnight after the first lockdown, the Wellcome Trust said ‘drugs, vaccines and rapid diagnostics’ were ‘the only exit strategy’ from the pandemic.
A fortnight after the first lockdown, the Wellcome Trust said ‘drugs, vaccines and rapid diagnostics’ were ‘the only exit strategy’ from the pandemic
That was echoed by a number of key SAGE participants during the pandemic.
It emerged this week that the Government has spent more than £100million on its response to the Covid inquiry on top of the £200million cost of the inquiry itself.
Wellcome is headed by Sir Jeremy Farrar, also a SAGE member during the pandemic, and who controversially discredited the Wuhan lab-leak theory which is claimed to have kickstarted the global crisis at the end of 2019.
Among others who it is claimed failed to register research funding is Professor Susan Michie, who had claimed restrictions such as social distancing and face masks should stay forever to reduce long-term pressure on the NHS.
Wellcome data shows she was the lead applicant for a £3.8 million grant into a behavioural science research project which she failed to disclose.
Professor John Edmunds, who previously argued there would be ‘significant risk’ until everyone including children had been vaccinated, was the sponsor of 10 research projects receiving Wellcome grants during the pandemic which were worth more than £12 million.
He was also one of seven applicants in a team receiving £2.8 million for a research project into Norovirus pandemics but none of these relationships with Wellcome were mentioned in the register.
Vaccines expert Professor Gavin Screaton received more than £26 million in nine Wellcome grants according to its records including one directly related to Covid-19 but these grants do not appear on the SAGE register.
Professor David Lalloo, who was working on a £25 million project focussed on infection and disease in Africa, did not register the funding.
Prof Michie and Prof Ferguson did not comment while a spokesman for Prof Edmunds said a grant for researching Norovirus was ‘not considered to be a potential conflict of interest’ and he did not receive funding on the ‘vast majority’ of grants because he was only sponsoring funding for junior researchers.
A spokesman for Prof Scranton said he ‘has complied fully with SAGE declaration guidance and disclosed interests that were materially relevant to his role’.
Meanwhile a spokesman for Professor Lalloo said he had only attended two preliminary SAGE meetings on the UK’s Covid response and was not asked to provide any declarations of interest relating to those meetings.
A Wellcome spokesperson said: ‘Wellcome is an independent non-profit foundation that supports science to solve health challenges.
‘Details of our grants are published openly on our website. We have clear governance and accountability arrangements for our investment portfolio. We use the returns from our investments to fund our charitable mission.’
