Last week the Council of Europe report on the 2009 pandemic scare was released.  I read it.  Much of it is stuff that I’ve reported on here before so I won’t go into it in detail, but it is nice to have official vindication, especially for the most unbelievable items, like the WHO changing the definition of “pandemic” (by taking out the part about severity) just before they declared a pandemic. 

The author of the report, Paul Flynn, seemed to be particularly outraged by this, especially in the context of “sleeper contracts” that various nations had with the vaccine companies, obligating them to buy vaccine if the WHO declared a pandemic.  Billions in profits were made on the special “pandemic” vaccine, which was 3 times more expensive than regular flu shots.  There was thus a gigantic financial incentive for someone to declare a pandemic whether there was one or not.  It is extremely suspicious that the WHO refuses to say who was on the emergency advisory committee that made the decisions about pandemic levels, etc.  Mr. Flynn’s request for transparency in this area seems entirely reasonable.

Flynn also points out that there are far-ranging harms caused by crying wolf over non-existent pandemics, like wasting money, scaring people for nothing and diminishing confidence in warnings when there is a real threat. 

The report zooms in on the UK, France and Poland as three examples of what happened in Europe.  Poland was particularly interesting because the health minister refused the contracts offered by the drug companies with the very high prices and the transfer of liability for side effects to the Polish government.  France and other European countries are doing national-level investigations into the apparent corruption and incompetence in the management of the “pandemic.”

Ironically, while I am not aware of any such investigation here, the leader appointed by the WHO as an outside reviewer of this issue is an American, Dr. Harvey Fineberg, President of the Institute of Medicine, who was mentioned in this blog previously as the author of the report on the 1976 Swine Flu fiasco.

A look over here at home would be relevant because there is direct personnel overlap between the WHO flu leadership and the CDC. 

Disclaimer:  This blog is a commentary on news items about flu.  It is not intended as individual medical advice.  Please consult a well-informed health care professional for your personal medical concerns.