Jury Still Out On Swine Flu, WHO & Pharmaceutical Industry Corruption

Questions linger as to whether a decision by the World Health Organization to declare swine flu a pandemic, thereby unleashing the slew of health measures, was over-dramatic or even tainted by commercial interests. "It's a decision which costs huge amounts of money, which frightened people throughout the world unnecessarily," said Paul Flynn, a British parliamentarian who led a Council of Europe inquiry on the issue. The WHO's decision resulted "in the disruption the changing of priorities in health services which were concentrating on swine flu instead of concentrating on matters which were far more important to save lives," he charged. Flynn noted that huge sums were spent on anti-virals and vaccines, which went largely wasted as skeptical populations refused to get vaccinated. Critics have raised the question of big pharma's influence on the WHO's treatment of the epidemic. The WHO review panel's final overall report on the handling of the pandemic is due to be ready by this autumn.

Alix Rijckaert, AFP

Related Links:
* Corrupt WHO Attempts To Whitewash Swine Flu Inquiry
Frank Jordans, Associated Press
* Corrupt WHO Rewrites History To Confuse Swine Flu Inquiry
Peter Doshi, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, British Medical Journal
* Swine Flu Pandemic Hysteria Hoax Heads For Court
R. C. Camphausen, Digital Journal / Der Spiegel

Millions Wasted As Deadly Swine Flu Vaccines Tossed Out

Only 40 per cent of B.C.’s population chose to be vaccinated against H1N1, which meant roughly 2.5 million of the 4.3 million doses ordered by the
province were unused

British Columbia could throw away almost $20 million worth of H1N1 vaccine because it went unused during swine flu season and will soon expire. On April 9, Health Canada abruptly reduced the best-before date to only six months because the adjuvanted H1N1 antigen was shown to decline in strength over time. That left B.C. and other Canadian provinces with millions of leftover doses and an unexpectedly short expiration date. “This was not planned, this was a vaccine that when we acquired it we were advised had an 18 months shelf life,” said Ida Chong, Minister of Healthy Living and Sport. “The fact it has been revised is something that has just come to our attention 10 days ago.” The millions spent on unused vaccine comes at a time when the cash-strapped provincial government is slashing spending and eliminating jobs as it grapples with a $1.7-billion deficit. Chong said the government is discussing the problem with Heal th Canada and vaccine manufacturer GlaxoSmithKline to see whether it can recover any money.“Certainly it raises a big question about the management of the whole H1N1 vaccine program,” said healthy living critic Jagrup Brar.

Rob Shaw, Canwest News Service, The Vancouver Sun