Meanwhile, "[a]n expert panel investigating the World Health Organization's response to last year's swine flu outbreak said Wednesday it wants to see confidential exchanges between the U.N. body and drug companies," the AP/Washington Post reports. Committee chairman and U.S. Institute of Medicine President Harvey Fineberg said the panel plans to seek documents of correspondence between the groups before and after the WHO declared H1N1 to be a pandemic, according to the news service.

"The documents include 'contractual or letters of understanding' between the pharmaceutical industry and WHO, [Fineberg] said. 'Some of the agreements with industry that we would like to examine have been considered confidential,' but so far all of the panel's requests have been met, he said" (Jordans, 5/19).

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