Govt's expert advisory team slams 'denigrating statements' against scientific bodies

The government's expert advisory team said on Monday that it was uneasy about "denigrating statements" concerning the work of certain state and scientific bodies. "Denigrating statements break the boundaries of tolerance widely accepted as the norm of behaviour in decent society," the advisory team wrote without addressing any specific person. Finance Minister Igor Matovic made comments in Moscow last week suggesting that the State Institute for the Supervision of Medicines (SUKL) and the Biomedicine Centre of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (SAV), which tested the Sputnik V vaccine in an allegedly unregistered lab, angered the Russians, who then decided that Slovakia should return the vaccine purchased six weeks earlier.