Abstract

In this paper I reproduce and examine three documents from the World Health Organization archives relating to the meetings of the Committee of Experts convened between 1959 and 1962 to analyse the impact on human health of antibiotics used in food and feed, in particular antimicrobial resistance. By analysing these documents, I highlight the concerns expressed by the American scientist Selman Waksman about the conflict of interest of the experts invited by the WHO. Moreover, I propose one letter of invitation to the 1962 meeting to show the rhetoric formula used by the WHO to address possible conflicts of interests between disinterested technical advices and experts interested in representing members states’ and other authorities’ interests. The third document, is a letter from an influential American pharmaceutical company asking to be admitted as an observer to the expert meeting, coupled with an internal WHO comment, which illustrates the industrial interests on the use of antibiotics in food and feedstuff.