The president of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità (ISS) resigned today Walter Ricciardi, for 4 years at the helm of the largest Italian health research institute. Ricciardi resigned, bringing forward by several months the expected expiry of the assignment, set for August 2019.
Informasalus – 19 December 2018
“In the last four and a half years I have been deeply committed to the recovery and revitalization of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità and today I am leaving a solid research body from an economic-financial point of view, reorganized from a management point of view, active and respected both nationally and internationally for the quality and quantity of its services, where a museum has been created which also represents a place of memory and the diffusion of scientific culture. I return to the research, teaching and professional activities with which I think I can contribute productively to the scientific, economic and social development of the country”. This is what he declares in a note resigned presidentor del'Iss, Walter Ricciardi.
Ricciardi therefore makes no reference to the accusations that have been made against him in recent times for his own alleged conflicts of interest. However, the timing with which the president resigned is remarkable.
At the beginning of December, in fact, the members of the "Vaccino Veritas" working group sent the Minister of Health Giulia Grillo a request for activation of a Ministerial Commission of Inquiry for "assessment of conflicts of interest and omission of particular information to guarantee the protection of public health, as well as the integrity, independence and transparency of the public administration" against Gualtiero (Walter) Ricciardi, president of the Istituto Superiore di Sanità. Here is the text of the request.
A few days later, on 11 December, the television program Le Iene broadcast its investigation into the collaborations of the president of the Higher Institute of Health with the pharmaceutical companies.
Following the revelations that emerged during the episode regarding the Ricciardi's relationships with some pharmaceutical companies and with a lobbying firm, the Codacons presented a urgent notice to the Anac and published all the relationships between Ricciardi and the pharmaceutical companies that produce vaccines.
In the application presented to the anti-corruption authority, Codacons asks the Anac to pronounce itself urgently on the possible incompatibility of Walter Ricciardi taking into account the relations between him and the pharmaceutical vaccine industry and the evidence deposited in the association's records. After all, already in 2016 the Codacons disclosed conflicts of interest in the hands of the President of the ISS denounced by a multitude of subjects.
Furthermore, the investigation of the show Le Iene ended up on prestigious British Medical Journal which on December 17 published a item entitled "A senior Italian public health official faces accusations of not having made public his relationships with pharmaceutical companies".
It is possible that all this prompted Walter Ricciardi to resign?
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