Swine Flu exposed

Swine Flu exposed

By Mark O’Brien

A report by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe into the Swine Flu pandemic released on June 4/10 (see) says that there was ‘overwhelming evidence that the seriousness of the pandemic was vastly overrated by WHO’.

The presenter of the report, Paul Flynn, SOC, described the Swine Flu pandemic as ‘the pandemic that never was’ and that they way the H1N1 pandemic was handled led to a massive waste of public money and unjustified fears and anxiety within Europe.

He said, “The tentacles of drug company influence are in all levels in the decision-making process… It must be right that the WHO is transparent because there has been distortion of priorities of public health all over Europe, waste of huge sums of public money and provocation of unjustified fear.”

The committee identified what it called “grave shortcomings” in the transparency of decision-making about the outbreak, generating concerns about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on decisions taken.

Plummeting confidence in such advice could prove “disastrous” in the case of a severe future pandemic, it warned.

This report was prompted by German medical doctor and parliamentarian, Dr Wolfgang Wodarg who shared his views about how the WHO and big pharma may have been complicit in exaggerating the risks over the H1N1 pandemic.

Editor in chief of the British Medical Journal Fiona Godlee told the parliament that an investigation by her journal had discovered that key scientists, responsible for drawing up key WHO guidelines for the stockpiling of vaccines, had in fact previously been in the employ of the same pharmaceutical companies that stood to profit.

The specific guidance to the WHO on antivirals was written by Professor Fred Hayden who has confirmed that he was paid by Roche (the manufacturers of Tamiflu) for lectures and consultancy at the time the guidance to the WHO was published.

The previous year he was a lead author in a Roche sponsored study asserting what was to become Roche’s main selling point – its claim to reduce hospital admissions for flu by 60%.

He had also been paid by GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), manufacturer of Relenza, in 2002 for further consultancy.

Dr Arnold Monto authored the WHO annex dealing with vaccine usage in pandemics and had received consultancy fees from Roche and GSK, while Professor Karl Nicholson, credited with the WHO’s influential work Pandemic Influenza, received sponsorship from both companies also.

Whilst it is not unusual for scientists to have industry links, and such links do not and should not necessarily proscribe their input into public health policy, what was unusual was that the WHO did not disclose these links in its seminal 2004 guidance advising countries to stockpile vaccines well in advance.

Approximately $US7billion was spent worldwide on these vaccines.

The UK alone spent over $1billion pounds, (approx $AU2.2billion) on stockpiling these vaccines (110 million doses, of which only 6 million were used), while Australia spent $500 million and the Australian Government is still vigorously promoting widespread vaccination for children and the elderly.

Nurses who may be exposed to children and other vulnerable patients are required to have the Swine Flu vaccine with its accompanying health side effects.

The author’s sister, a midwife, experienced nausea and flu-like symptoms for two weeks after she had her compulsory vaccination.

Swine flu 5% as deadly as seasonal flu

The WHO gives worldwide updates on the numbers of people killed by Swine Flu (see) which currently stands at 17,853, verses the figures for seasonal influenza, also published by the WHO (see) which vary between 250-500,000 deaths worldwide.