Slashdot Mirror
WHO To Investigate Handling of Swine Flu Information, Vaccine Orders
krou writes "With swine flu fading in the UK (projected winter deaths of 65,000 have been downgraded to 1,000, and new cases are decreasing) the UK government has been left with millions of unused vaccines, and (unlike its contract with Baxter) no clear break-clause to get out of its contract with GlaxoSmithKlein. Although the amount paid for vaccines has not been disclosed, it likely cost the UK government several hundred million pounds. Other governments are also in a similar position: the US ordered 251 million doses of the vaccine, and France and Germany are aiming to cut back on their orders considerably. To say that the case for the pandemic has been over-estimated appears to be an understatement. Now, the WHO has announced that it is to investigate whether or not it bowed to pressure from drugs companies to overplay the threat." (Continues, below.)
"The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly has also announced an investigation into the matter after a resolution [pdf] from Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Health, was adopted. Dr. Wodarg labelled swine flu as a "false pandemic", and claims in the resolution that '"in order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies responsible for public health standards to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies, and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of side-effects of insufficiently-tested vaccines."' By some estimates, GSK was expected to net over £1 billion from vaccine sales."
You know, I really love Iron Maiden... but I guess the WHO gets my vote now... I didnt know they were that active in saving the world!!!
;-)
StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
So regular people weren't the only ones caught up in the sensationalism that is/was swine flu. Governments were hooked by it too...
That Anonymous Coward guy is pretty annoying. Can we have the government censor him or something?
it was always fear mongering. and the government shouldn't get to pass the buck either - they made the call to make the order, i'm sure they could have gotten independant advice.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
WHO's on first?
When I read a rumor that mostly fat people were dying from swine flu, it gave me the motivation to lose weight. I went from obese to normal weight in nine months. Now I feel stronger because I am not carrying around 50 pounds of ballast.
That's the only good thing that has come of the media scare about swine flu.
I agree that it was indeed a fear-fad, but the reason behind it is fairly understandable. H1N1 hit hardest (i.e. killed people) in a different demographic than the seasonal flu; young people in generally good health. This is a demographic that does not usually feel threatened by the seasonal flu, and when this virus showed up, the threat (which in numbers are quite comparable to the seasonal flu) seemed immensely larger than reason would dictate.
This case did not only occur in the UK. Sweden bought 18 million doses, to a population of 9 million at price of about 140,000,000 USD. However, not all have been used as some refused to get it and others cannot. It is quite likely that Glax-Smith-Klein used the situation, but... What if the governments hadn't done it? And people had died as flies... Hindsights...
It seems more to me the journalists did their own fear-mongering. The politicians just followed the prevailing winds like always. I wish politicians would have more balls than that, but I also wish I could fly!
The politicians just followed the prevailing winds like always.
So much for the idea that politicians should have leadership skills.
More like ring-in-the-nose skills.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
The biggest fear mongering came for news organizations, of course, since that's what they do. However right behind them was the WHO. When Swine Flu started man they went to town with panic type announcements. You read their stuff and you could see where the news organizations were getting the crap they were blowing out of proportion.
To me it seems like the WHO overreacted, people and governments bought in to it, and now they are looking for a scape goat. While I'm sure the drug companies were more than happy to sell as much vaccine as anyone wanted to buy, I've seen no evidence they were causing the panic. Seems to have stated with poor, sensationalistic stories from the WHO which were then inevitably turned in to mass doomsday stories by the media.
..who will investigate the handling of swine flu information?
-= This is a self-referential sig =-
"Now that this information is becoming public this will become an annual event because government can never admit it was wrong."
They don't have to admit they are wrong. All they have to do is find out which one of these companies actually released the virus in the wilds of Mexico.
It is against the law to profit from your crimes in this country.
I have no problem with this. There was a reasonable likelihood of a megadeath sized pandemic. Appropriate steps were taken to prevent it. Some of those steps may have been unnecessary, but it didn't hurt and wasn't outrageously expensive.
The swine flue vaccination campaign in the US probably has already saved more lives than the entire Department of Homeland Security.
There is similar turmoil in many countries. I find it a bit... opportunistic. At the time the governments ordered the vaccines, the threat wasn't well assessed. Even now, we will probably not know the big picture until the medical data is carefully analyzed. Imagine the kind of reactions we would see if the situation was the opposite, a pandemic still going strong with not enough vaccines.
Has anyone done a comparison to deaths via peanut allergies?
Lol. I never could understand why people bought into the swine flu hysteria nonsense. If you looked at the numbers for how many people actually got sick and how many died from it, IT'S JUST THE FREAKING FLU! Jeesh. I wonder what the next fear-fad will be? I'm rooting for alien invasions.
Actually that's incorrect. "Just the flu" is far deadlier each year than the swine flu has ever been in sum total. Therefore, it's even more of a non-issue to me than the regular "feel like shit for a while and get over it" influenza. The only problem, and it isn't my problem, is that it's hard to sell vaccines to people who feel this way.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
I'm all for criticizing the pharmaceutical companies, and their mishandling of the epidemic... but the major governments of the world were eager partners in spreading fear and mis-information. Now they're trying to deflect blame.
The hysterical press is the third entity that should share in the guilt.
Think about this a little. Assume you're the person in charge of handling this crisis. There are two main variables, each with two outcomes: "do something now?" and "is H1N1 a big deal?". For the purposes of this conversation, while there may be magnitudes of "is H1N1 a big deal?", any value other than "no, not at all" is about the same as "yes, very". But this leads us to four cases:
Now look at these scenarios. First off, it should be obvious that not spending the money only "wins" in one out of four cases, and if you look at it politically, you were still gambling with peoples' lives. Second, and perhaps less obvious at first, is that it may actually be hard to tell the difference between 1 and 3. Without seeing both "do" and "do not" played out, can we tell if the vaccine was useful? Sure we may have lots left over, but ... maybe even what was used played a significant role. Compare this to Y2K; lots of money was spent, lots of work was done, and lots of systems didn't break. Was it wasted effort? Was Y2K not a credible issue?
In the end, it comes down to this: do you value money or the lives of people? You're not a doctor, but lots of credible people tell you this might be a significant problem. Do you cheap out and possibly save a few bucks, risking the lives of millions? Or do you spend a few million bucks possibly unnecessarily, to possibly save millions in the face of a credible threat?
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
True. The previous H1N1 epidemic barely made a dent.
50-100m deaths, when the global population was a quarter of what it is now, is hardly anything.
You're quite right, "a small percentage of people that might have died" - 5% is, indeed, a small percentage. That'd only be a quarter of a billion deaths these days.
The orders were put in at a time when no one knew whether it going to stay relatively harmless or mutate to something as potent as the 1918-1920 version of the same virus. Even then, it took them well over six months to create enough to just cover the high risk groups. They could've waited, to be sure... But, had we not got lucky and it had mutated, that'd have been a fun six to nine months of knowing we needed a vaccine but had wasted our chance to get started. Given the choice, I'd rather err on the side of caution than save a few dollars.
H1N1 hit hardest (i.e. killed people) in a different demographic than the seasonal flu; young people in generally good health.
I keep hearing this from people, but everything I've read about actual numbers contradicts this. Young people in generally good health might be a little more at risk, but people with preexisting medical conditions are the ones that need to worry (which is normal).
If you have a reliable citation otherwise, I'd love to see it.
I wish we had any politicians left in the west. We don't. What we have is managers. Like all managers, their primary interest is staying on the job and collecting nice salaries, at least until they've build up new and valuable connections and can hop to the next well-paying job.
The word "Politician" includes the greek "polis", which is the body of citizens, or in american terms, "we, the people". If you know of a politician actually interested in the polis, bring him to the nearest endangered species reserve.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
as for politicians I guess they had no real choice - WHO used its (recently changed) rules to announce a pandemic and govs had to do something as negligence in case of pending disaster would not only be deadly in political terms but criminal. And on top of this strange annoucnement by WHO (which is I suppose to be investigated now) there are cases like the one of Sir Roy M. Anderson. The whole thing stinks like an industrial swine farm hence the name of the disease.
Guys, if you prepare for a disaster and it does not actually happen, that is a good thing.
Firefighters are generally not disappointed when there's no fire.
So regular people weren't the only ones caught up in the sensationalism that is/was swine flu. Governments were hooked by it too...
The Dutch government ordered 34 million vaccines for 17 million people. They spent about 200 million Euro on this. Maybe half of that is used, the rest will or will not be sold to other countries. I don't mind that they spend this money. It's like an insurance, and 200 million Euro is nothing compared to the cost of having a hundreds of thousands people ill with the flu.
A flu that will kill millions of people is going to happen sooner or later. Now nothing serious has happened people are mad, but...
Shouldn't we be happy instead???
All they have to do is find out which one of these companies actually released the virus in the wilds of Mexico.
Thank you, exactly what I always thought, however this is the first instance (I come across) that someone else utters this suspicion.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
Well the WHO deserve a massive amount of blame themselves.
In fact, I'd put them at the core of it. It was after all Margaret Chan, the WHO's director general that came out with the quote, which was clearly idiotic even at the time of "After all it really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic.".
I mean seriously, what a load of crap. Not every pandemic comes close to putting the whole of humanity under threat, and it was pretty obvious well before she made this comment that swine flu was not deadly enough to be linked to such an absurd claim.
Mexico lost many people to it initially, and as soon as someone died from it in the US, the media went into a frenzy because it's not like of course anyone has ever died from influenza before. After the initial large death toll in Mexico. There was at no point through the spread of swine flu to the present day where the ratio of infected to death was anything worse than a typical bad flu season, since initially being at the typical bad flu season it has actually decreased, to be one of the least harmful annual flus we've had. The amount of healthy people that died to it was negligible, the deaths were almost entirely amongst those already old or weak.
Swine flu never was a threat, it was an outright scam, and the WHO were one of the major players in that scam. I would even argue their involvement was knowing and intentional- how can someone in such a prominent position as Margaret Chan not spot what anyone sensible and down to earth could? That Swine flu just wasn't doing anything serious. She's either grossly incompetent, or intentionally deceptive, either way, she's entirely unfit for the post. She needs to be sacked and replaced by someone who can actually treat such situations with an air of common sense and objectivity, and who can look at the facts before trying to rate the likes of swine flu as something that could whipe out the whole of humanity.
That might be OK, if we had a few competent managers, but the ones we have in the UK have stepped straight out of Dilbert. Currently we have 'transformational' government. I've tried telling them that transformational isn't even a word.
On y va, qui mal y pense!
you gotta link
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090505174547.htm
this was also a slashdot story, But if you don't read the flaming summaries, you'd never know.
Really? I thought politician came from poly, i.e. many and tic, i.e. blood sucking pests.
I love /., you always learn something new every day. Though, personally, I think my description is better for the current kind of politician.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They can't. Blame the media.
The media thrive on sensationalism, hype and fear. Some invisible killer epidemic is perfect. So they hype and blow it out of proportion as much as they can.
In comes a politician faced with two choices. Either dismiss it as the usual fear mongering or buy into it. If they dismiss it, first of all they get a lot of negative press, because they don't play along to the media hype. How dare they endanger the lives of the people! And should the near zero chance of actually the hype becoming a real threat happen, they can hope that they may still resign before some angry relatives come for their hides.
If they buy into it, they blow a shitload of tax money and that's it. Nobody is going to hold it against them when (not if) it turns out to be the usual overhyped bubble. The media won't ask why they blew the money (else they could probably ponder not to play along next time).
Same's true for the whole terror craze, by the way. Why do you think no politician dares to debunk the whole hype even if (not when) he wasn't included in the kickback package?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Having seen what it can be like for healthy people, and that most of us have no immunity to this version, I'm really happy they did order lots of vaccine. I'd hate to think what it would be like if you did have some health problem. I've got an appointment to get my youngest son vaccinated on Monday. Maybe the risk is over, maybe it's not. Either way, I think it makes sense. If another H1N1 pandemic comes along in a few years time, maybe he'll have a little immunity the way the over-60s seem to have had for this one.
Here in the UK, while a greater number of people with pre-existing conditions died (as you say), 36% of deaths occurred in people with no pre-existing condition (see the Chief Medical Officer's report in the BMJ http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/339/dec10_1/b5213). This is not what you would expect of seasonal 'flu and is a cause for concern especially if H1N1 had had a greater mortality rate.
fearmongering is when you pretty much know something is not a big deal, but you hype it up anyways. but we're talking about a brand new disease here. no one knows what it could have done. no one could say that there was overreacting or underreacting going on, because no one knew what swine flu had in store for us. you are not operating on fear when you consider the worst possible scenarios and the worst possible scenarios are certainly possible. and since the worst possible scenarios are so harsh, you cover all your bases and get a lot of vaccines. there's only logic and reason there, no fear in play
furthermore, who's to say the government's thorough and overpowering countermeasures all summer didn't make a difference? its like saying it was silly to waste all the money making all the buildings earthquake proof... because the earthquake came and no buildings fell down... well no shit! the quake proofing saw to that! maybe h1n1 was no big deal precisely because we reacted so swiftly and heavily
i don't know where fearmongering comes into the equation anywhere
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Governments had a big incentive too - relatively recent financial crisis was still looming in the news, so it was convenient to have a "serious" topic that would shift the attention away from their f***ups.
In some places, in Ukraine for example, the promotion of hysteria went to comical levels (but they also have presidential election now, and such things are very strong element of them there)
One that hath name thou can not otter
Well the truth is the world health organisation and drug companies instigated this. It is just like all the advertisiments on television trying to get you to buy Flu & Cold remedies at winter time. If you ask me, just have some good chicken soup and sit it out with halve a bottle of Brandy. You will be just fine.http://www.theoneclickgroup.co.uk has excellent reports on what exactly happened for those who care to read. Spain has and a few other Countries have asked for refunds, but the damage has been done now. As it was put in to UK law that you were forced to be innoculated and those groups who were deemed at a high risk with underlying medical problems had to take the shot. This stems from the Anti-Terrorism Laws, that "If something is deemed within the publics' best interest"; and someone like Gordon Brown. Says so it is written in to law. These people will never know the lasting effects until it is too late to do anything about it. I am sorry if I am having a rant, but we cannot escape the facts; just like monsato's genetically modified bullcrap. Again I apologise as I am rather outspoken and do not mean to be hurtful. Love NSN
All cows eat grass!
"as for politicians I guess they had no real choice" - Exactly I you recall, right wing pundits were putting out feelers that Swine flu might be "Obama's Katrina" back in November when it looked like the epidemic was spinning up and we didn't have enough vaccines. So, if epidemic gets bad, "Obama's Katrina" If the epidemic levels off (due in no small part to vaccination efforts), "LOL, you overreacted"... As to the virulence question, yes, the chances of dieing of H1N1 are remote, the chances of getting very sick, less so, but still highly unlikely. However, the profile of the disease, killing/hurting people in the prime of life, even when they were otherwise healthy, was FAR more pronounced than "regular" flu... Concern was the proper response.
Vaccinations are worthwhile. It could've been much worse without the scaremongering.
It's just like any other technical work. When you screw up, everyone hears about it. When you do everything right, everyone asks "What the fuck are we paying you for if we never have any problems?" Nothing bad happened because we reacted strongly and quickly.
"institutions like the WHO must also justify their existence"
The WHO erradicated the biblical plague of smallpox from the face of the Earth and are pretty close to achieving the same thing with polio. I went to school with polio victims in the 60's and as far as I am concerned their track record more than justifies their existence.
It a pity the WHO don't have a cure for arrogance and hubris because the comments I've read so far are sickening.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Thats what they where saying on the news (that it killed healthy people more).
Now I want the numbers. Its almost over, so start compiling.
Give us the statistics and all the numbers on actual cases and profile of those to whom it was fatal.
I dont buy it.
But you're not providing enough information for it to be relevant. If the normal flue kills 0.00001% of younger healthy people, and this new flu doubles the chance of a younger healthy person to die, it's still doesn't matter because it's not significant.
Show me some numbers, then start making claims. As of yet all I've heard is scare mongering.
The numbers from the initial outbreak reports were one in six. So for a country the size of the US, you could expect 1/3 to catch the flu and 1/6 of those to die - or around 16 million. That's a pretty scary number.
Of course, the early numbers turned out to be wrong. But that took a couple of months to figure out. It still turned out to have a relatively high mortality rate for flu.