MOSCOW, December 24. /TASS/. The transfer of dubious bio research from legal and ethical viewpoints to third countries allows the United States not to declare studies held on the Pentagon’s orders in annual reports on confidence-building measures under the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), Chief of Russia’s Radiation, Chemical and Biological Protection Force Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov said on Saturday.
"In the interests of the so-called ‘big pharmacy,’ the US administration transfers dubious research from legal and ethical viewpoints to the territory of third countries. Simultaneously, this allows it not to declare studies carried out on orders from the US defense agency in annual reports within BTWC confidence-building measures," the Russian defense official said.
In the early 1990s, Russia agreed under the BTWC verification procedures to open up non-military labs for US and UK officials on a reciprocal basis, he specified.
In compliance with the accords, a group of Russian experts carried out inspections of companies within the Pfizer pharmaceutical giant, with inspection notices sent 48 hours in advance, the defense official said.
"These visits caused an extremely negative reaction from American pharmaceutical producers. Under the pretext that the inspections endangered the interests of business and intellectual property, all further attempts to implement verification procedures were blocked by the US government," he said.
The US move to block the convention’s verification mechanism can be explained by the lobbying of the interests of big pharmaceutical companies, Kirillov said.