Porton Group Slams 3M's Statement on MRSA Device as 'Nonsense'

LONDON, June 14, 2011 /PRNewswire/ --

Porton Group has been closely monitoring, with much interest, the public reaction that followed the significant amount of press regarding 3M's UK High Court breach of contract case.

Harvey Boulter, CEO of Porton Group said, "3M's feeble initial public defence of 'buyer's remorse' utterly conflicts with their own marketing material which even today remains on their website. Their own material emphatically states that Baclite achieves 94.6% sensitivity and 96.9% specificity." [http://tinyurl.com/2aw8e4q]

Mr. Boulter continued, "Last month, 3M resorted to suggesting that Porton and the British Ministry of Defence is attempting some kind of financial shakedown of 3M. This position was repeated yesterday by Mr. Brewer of Bickel & Brewer, the third firm to act as Counsel for 3M in this matter."

Mr. Boulter stated, "This is absolute nonsense. Our legal claim rests on an easily provable breach of contract -– broken promises.  All Porton and the MoD has asked is that 3M keep its word and pay both Porton and the British MoD what it is due under the signed contract.  We are confident that when the court trial finishes this summer, there will be a verdict that 3M breached its contractual commitments."

Lanny J. Davis, US lawyer for Porton said, "We appreciate that 3M has emerged from its "no comment" stance of Sunday and attempted to explain its decision to walk away from its contractual commitments with the MoD which invented this life-saving MRSA detection device. 3M botched the U.S. clinical trials, in which they achieved only 50% reliability results, whilst at the same time advertising the EU regulatory approved results of 95% reliability."

Mr. Davis challenged George Buckley in May 2011, asking, "Why Mr. Buckley, when your own 11 Member technical committee identified and detailed clearly 3M failings in the US FDA trials, all of which were easily correctable, did you not try again?"

Mr. Davis repeats that question today.

Mr. Boulter said, "In my view, if 3M were undertaking their commitments in good faith, they had no reason not to fix correctable mistakes." He continued: "As a result of decisions taken by Mr. Buckley and his senior team, global efforts to reduce incidents of MRSA have been set back. Prevention through rapid detection of MRSA carriers has been shown to be fundamental in reducing the infection rates -– Baclite was cost effective, rapid and by EU standards worked."

Porton Group, and recently MP for West Bromwich East and former Defence Minister Tom Watson, have asked for full transparency in the High Court.  Mr. Davis said, "British voters have not only been deprived of a weapon to fight MRSA infections but the UK taxpayer lost out as well."

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