Big Pharma caught spying on the WHO

I am going through various Wikileaks documents from their site (there are thousands) that I haven't looked at yet and even though this one is old, I thought I would post it. It concerns WHO plans for R&D funding for neglected diseases which were in the hands of an industry group which apparently wasn't supposed to be involved in the decision making process.

From Wikileaks.

The compilation of documents shows the influence of "Big Pharma" on the policy making decisions of the WHO, the UN body safeguarding public health. These confidential documents were obtained by the drug industry before their public release to WHO member states (scheduled to be released May 2010). The document also illustrates that the WHO expert group was highly responsive to industry lobbying — a result that public health groups had feared since early 2009, when the expert group met with the industry, but refused to meet with public health groups known to be industry critics.

An analysis provided on the site also had this to say:

Within “fundraising,” proposals considered “least likely to work” include diverting existing resources to health, reducing tax evasion and havens, levying new charges on services or access rights. A proposal for a “Green IP” system (IPW, Inside Views, 27 June 2008) is currently “too hard to operationalise” but some elements could potentially be useful.
Most likely to work include new indirect taxes, for example on internet users; voluntary private contributions, new donor funds, and taxes on pharmaceutical profits. Taxing pharmaceutical profits is estimated to generate only USD 160 million versus, for example, a potential USD 2 billion from internet taxes.