Statistics have told us the true story. There is a yawning gap between the numbers of predicted deaths due to swine flu vis-à-vis the actual numbers. 2009 witnessed WHO declaring swine flu as a ‘pandemic’ leading to pharmaceutical companies investing fortunes in developing vaccines to combat the disease.
However, in a recent report, a leading health care expert has stated that swine flu outbreak was a “false pandemic” driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of pounds from a worldwide scare. Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, has said that this false alarm has led to pharmaceutical firms ensuring “enormous gains”, with countries squandering their health budgets on vaccinating millions against what was actually a mild disease.
The Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based “senate” responsible for the European Court of Human Rights, has passed a resolution proposed by Dr. Wodarg, which calls for an investigation into the role of drug firms in this entire episode, who he believes have pressured WHO into declaring a global pandemic.
In a startling revelation, Documents acquired through the Danish Freedom of Information Act revealed that Professor Juhani Eskola – a Finnish member of the WHO board on vaccines called the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) – received almost 6.3 million Euros in 2009 for his vaccine research programme from the vaccine manufacturers GlaxoSmithKline. Furthermore, Danish journalists reported that six other members of ‘Strategic Advisory Group of Experts’ (SAGE) with financial ties to various pharmaceutical companies. Many of the pharmaceutical companies with which the vaccine board members had ties, are also the manufacturers of vaccines including the H1N1 vaccine like GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Novartis, Solvay, Baxter, MedImmune and Sanofi Aventis.
The drug company GlaxoSmithKline responded to Wodarg’s allegations. “Allegations of undue influence are misguided and unfounded. The WHO declared that H1N1 swine flu met the criteria for a pandemic. Responding to it has required unprecedented collaboration. As WHO have stated, legal regulations and numerous safeguards are in place to manage possible conflicts of interest,” it stated.
According to Dr. Wodarg, the fear that began with the avian flu virus caused governments to stockpile anti-flu drugs and put in place ‘sleeping contracts’ for millions of doses of vaccine. Dr Wodarg said: “The governments have sealed contracts with vaccine producers where they secure orders in advance and take upon themselves almost all the responsibility. In this way the producers of vaccines are sure of enormous gains without having any financial risks. So they just wait, until WHO says ‘pandemic’ and activate the contracts.” He also believes that these anti0viral drug manufacturers placed people in the cogs of the WHO and coaxed the organisation to soften its definition of a pandemic, thereby declaring swine flu a global pandemic. He further said: “We have had a mild flu – and a false pandemic.”
Article By Snigdha Taduri for Biomed-ME