The federal overall health minister, Michael Wooldridge, has come under fire for his elevation of drug company executive Pat Clear for the government’s Pharmaceutical Added benefits Advisory Committee. The 12 member committee recommends which drugs qualify for subsidies below the nation’s .5bn (US 2.25bn) pharmaceutical added benefits scheme and has recently noticed the gov-ernment legislate to take away a number of senior members. Half of your committee members have already quit in protest, claiming that the appointment of Mr Clear, a former chief executive with the Australian Pharmaceutical Producers Association, would undermine the body’s independence. The Australian Health-related Association’s president, Kerryn Phelps, mentioned that if Mr Clear didn’t stand down the government ought to ask him to go as his sturdy links for the industry showed a minimum of a potential conflict of interest. “There must not be an sector appointment on thePharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee,” she said. “It ought to be not just an independent committee but observed to become an completely independent committee. The sorts of decisions that are being produced by [the committee] are as well crucial to be influenced by something besides scientific and objective investigation.” The International Union of Pharmacists and the American Health-related Association have also attacked the move, and M ecins Sans Fronti es mentioned that the decision jeopardised a drug approval method recognised as planet class. Australia’s prime minister, John Howard, has also been drawn in to the row; he Vorapaxar site claimed that it was ridiculous to suggest that one particular person could influence the choices of 11 other people who have been all extremely qualified for the role. The prime minister’s electorate in Sydney is identified in thedrug business as “pill hill” because it is dwelling to six pharmaceutical plants, but he has denied that there was any lobbying to put Mr Clear within the job. Mr Wooldridge said that the government, which is bearing the brunt with the rising cost and assortment of drugs and desires private well being insurance coverage to carry much more with the burden, wants a much more collaborative approach involving the committee plus the industry. The minister claimed that the former chairman from the body’s financial committee, Professor David Henry, who has been a vocal critic from the adjustments and who stated that the group had to become adversarial, had whipped up the criticism. Dr Phelps, on the other hand, rejected comments that the old committee was stuck in its ways and not open to new drugs: “I think that that is certainly in fact an excuse for culling as quite a few members from the committee as was doable.”BMJ VOLUME 322 17 FEBRUARY 2001 bmj.comAP PHOTO/DOUGLAS ENGLEAn estimated 33.3 million persons are living with HIV globally, 67 of whom reside in sub-Saharan Africa. Additionally, the region accounted for just about 70 of 1.7 million HIV-related deaths that occurred in 2011 [1]. While the effect of HIV in this region varies widely [2], there is evidence that scaleup of antiretroviral therapy (ART) can reverse some of the adverse social economic impacts of HIV on folks, families and communities, with constructive changes in life expectancy [3], demographic composition [4] and fertility [5].