flu confusion blog

The verdict on the swine flu vaccine of 2009?

Wed, 7 Jul 2010 06:03:41 -0400

The Associated Press recently ran another article about tens of millions of swine flu shots expiring and being incinerated. The bottom line of the article was that this was somehow normal and to be expected--a necessary part of having enough flu vaccine to protect us just in case.

The official European government investigations into possible malfeasance by the WHO allegedly making a false pandemic declaration to sell vaccine were referred to as “some commentators attacking the WHO.” This seems like something of an understatement. One commentator they quoted was Prof. Ulrich Keil of Muenster, Germany, seen above pointing at meat for some reason, who said that the flu was not as big a priority as other health issues.

This sort of dueling experts controversy is typical for mainstream media reporting and does not really help the cause of creating an informed citizenry. It just confuses things by making it seem that no one understands anything. Reality exists. It is extremely dangerous to act as if it doesn’t.

Many of the statements in the article were verifiably true or false. They could have and should have been truth-checked. For example, did swine flu vaccine prevent death and disease? This is not a matter of personal opinion. I can understand maybe how a year ago, in the hight of the “pandemic” frenzy there was a rush to jump to conclusions, but by now there should be one medical reporter in the world who has caught up on the subject. At what point do we get sober analysis by someone who has actually examined the science of the issue instead of merely parroting talking points?

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.

Obama’s one achievement: flu vaccine?

Fri, 2 Jul 2010 06:50:53 -0400

David Axelrod, President Obama’s Senior Advisor was on The Daily Show this past week [yes Comedy Central is my only source of TV news]. When challenged on the competence of the Administration, the one thing Mr. Axelrod pointed to was the H1N1 vaccine program, which he implied had prevented an epidemic. ????????????? In Europe, as reported here the last few weeks, political leaders are investigating the leaders of the “pandemic” vaccine campaign for fraud and incompetence. Not only are we not having similar investigations here, but the president is holding up the Swine flu campaign as a model of effective government. Here or there, somebody is seriously divorced from reality.

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.

WHO profits from redefining “pandemic”?

Sun, 13 Jun 2010 16:21:52 -0400

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.

Council of Europe releases report on WHO flu panic

Sun, 6 Jun 2010 13:45:29 -0400

Flu is back on the front page! In my last post, I noted that European authorities were investigating the WHO’s apparently overblown response to the 2009 flu. The report is now out and available online (at least the preliminary version) at http://assembly.coe.int/CommitteeDocs/2010/20100604_H1N1pandemic_e.pdf. I plan to read the report and comment. In the meantime, the Washington Post reported on this in Reports accuse WHO of exaggerating H1N1 threat, possible ties to drug makers. The WHO’s response is apparently complete denial that they did anything wrong.

Medical waste!

Tue, 6 Apr 2010 14:10:23 -0400

72 million doses of flu vaccine will be discarded because they have expired without being used, according to the Washington Post.

The $1.6 billion program was the “most ambitious immunization campaign in U.S. history.” Out of 229 million doses of swine flu vaccine purchased by the government, only 91 million have been used. So not even half were used. It might be possible to save some of the still unused vaccine for future use, but it could wind up in the garbage too.

Some states had vaccination rates three times higher than others. This is an interesting natural experiment. Did the states with high vaccination have less flu?
When researchers have examined this question in the past, they have found no correlation. Yet the CDC is saying that this year’s vaccine “blunted the pandemic,” and “officials said they were largely satisfied with the effort.” In fact, as I noted in my last post, the federal flu policy has changed to a recommendation that all Americans get a flu shot every year.
This is in stark contrast to the reaction in Europe, where the WHO is being officially investigated for what is being viewed there as a fiasco of gross overreaction that was possibly linked to the corrupt influence of Big Pharma trying to sell flu vaccine, Tamiflu, etc.
Was throwing shots into garbage cans really the best use of a billion taxpayer dollars here in the U.S. ?

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.