Drug firms cashed in on scare over swine flu

Yet more reports of conflict of interest from people in high positions responsible to advising governments, and of course we have the fact - that many of us have known all along: The drug companies were motivated by money and profits in pushing the "Swine Flu Pandemic" scare. Billions of Dollars/Pounds/Euros have been squandered to order massive quantities of vaccines and flu drugs as governments got prepared for the massive death toll and riots that were suppose to be caused by the H1N1 Virus.... Now governments are left with stock piles of vaccines that will be all but useless in the next few months, and gaping holes in their health budgets to pay for actual medical emergencies and routine services.

Are you shocked?

The 'false' pandemic: Drug firms cashed in on scare over swine flu, claims Euro health chief

By Fiona Macrae
Last updated at 8:38 AM on 11th January 2010

The swine flu outbreak was a 'false pandemic' driven by drug companies that stood to make billions of pounds from a worldwide scare, a leading health expert has claimed.

Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, accused the makers of flu drugs and vaccines of influencing the World Health Organisation's decision to declare a pandemic.

This led to the pharmaceutical firms ensuring 'enormous gains', while countries, including the UK, 'squandered' their meagre health budgets, with millions being vaccinated against a relatively mild disease.

A resolution proposed by Dr Wodarg calling for an investigation into the role of drug firms has been passed by the Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based 'senate' responsible for the European Court of Human Rights.

An emergency debate on the issue will be held later this month.

Dr Wodarg's claims come as it emerged the British government is desperately trying to offload up to £1billion of swine flu vaccine, ordered at the height of the scare

The Department of Health warned of 65,000 deaths, set up a special advice line and website, suspended normal rules so anti-flu drugs could be given out without prescription and told health and local authorities to prepare for a major pandemic.

Planners were told to get morgues ready for the sheer scale of deaths and there were warnings that the Army could be called in to prevent riots as people fought to obtain drugs.

But with fewer than 5,000 in England catching the disease last week and just 251 deaths overall, Dr Wodarg has branded the H1N1 outbreak as 'one of the greatest medical scandals of the century'.

He said: 'We have had a mild flu - and a false pandemic.'

He added the seeds of the scare were sown five years ago, when it was feared the much more lethal bird flu virus would mutate into a human form.

The 'atmosphere of panic' led to governments stockpiling the anti-flu drug Tamiflu and putting 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 claims that to further push their interests, leading drug companies placed 'their people' in the 'cogs' of the WHO and other influential organisations.

He added that their influence could have led the WHO to soften its definition of a pandemic - leading to the declaration of a worldwide outbreak last June.

Dr Wodarg said: 'In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu, pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies, responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide.

'They have made them squander tight healthcare resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.'

He does not name any Britons with conflicts of interest.

But last year, the Daily Mail revealed that Sir Roy Anderson, a scientist who advises the Government on swine flu, also holds a £116,000-a-year post on the board of GlaxoSmithKline.

GSK makes anti-flu drugs and vaccines and is predicted to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the pandemic.

A young girl is given an inoculation at a medical centre in Cockermouth, England. Millions were given vaccines against swine flu, with pharmaceutical companies being paid huge sums by the government

The Department of Health says that although the disease appears to be on the wane, it cannot rule out a third surge and urges all those entitled to the jab to have it.

Professor David Salisbury, the Government's head of immunisation said there were 'no grounds whatsoever' for Dr Wodarg's claims, saying people with conflicts of interest were kept out of the decision-making process.

A GSK spokesman said: 'Allegations of undue influence are misguided and unfounded. The WHO declared that H1N1 swine flu met the criteria for a pandemic.

'As WHO have stated, legal regulations and numerous safeguards are in place to manage possible conflicts of interest.'

The company, which still employs Sir Roy, said he had declared his commercial interests and had not attended any meetings related to the purchase of drugs or vaccine for either the Government or GSK.

HERE to go to the original Article

Do you still think that the WHO and many world governments truly are "independent"? That they are motivated solely for the benefit of the populations that they are suppose to be protecting?

Yea, I don't think so.

It's a strange thing that when you start to investigate all these so called "Experts" in the field of viruses and vaccines, the deeper you dig, the more collusion and outright conflicts of interest you discover.

One of the members of SAGE at the time and today was Dr. Albert “Mr Flu” Osterhaus. Not only was Osterhaus in a key position to advocate the panic-inducing WHO “Pandemic emergency” declaration. He was also chairman of the leading private European Scientific Working group on Influenza, which describes itself as a “multidisciplinary group of key opinion leaders in influenza [that] aims to combat the impact of epidemic and pandemic influenza.” Osterhaus’ ESWI is the vital link as they themselves describe it “between the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin and the University of Connecticut, USA.”

What is more significant about the ESWI is that its work is entirely financed by the same pharma mafia companies that make billions on the pandemic emergency as governments around the world are compelled to buy and stockpile vaccines on declaration of a WHO Pandemic. The funders of ESWI include H1N1 vaccine maker Novartis, Tamiflu distributor, Hofmann-La Roche, Baxter Vaccines, MedImmune, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi Pasteur and others.

Not to lose the point, the world-leading virologist, official adviser on H1N1 to the governments of the UK and Holland, Dr Albert Osterhaus, head of the Department of Virology at the Erasmus MC of Rotterdam, also sat on the WHO’s elite SAGE and served as chairman at the same time of the pharma industry-sponsored ESWI which urged dramatic steps to vaccinate the world against the grave danger of a new Pandemic they insisted could rival the feared 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic.

The Wall Street bank, JP Morgan estimated that in large part as a result of the WHO pandemic decision, the giant pharma firms that also finance Osterhaus’ ESWI work, stand to reap some €7.5 to €10 billion in profits. ¹⁴

A fellow member of WHO’s SAGE is Dr Frederick Hayden, of Britain’s Wellcome Trust and reportedly a close friend of Osterhaus. Hayden also receives money for “advisory” services from Roche and GlaxoSmithKline among other pharma giants involved in producing products related to the H1N1 panic....

..Even more the meetings of the “independent” scientists of SAGE are attended by “observers” who include, yes, the very vaccine producers GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Baxter and company. In the past decade the WHO, in order to boost funds at its disposal entered into what it calls “public private partnerships.” Instead of receiving its funds solely from member United Nations governments as its original purpose had been, WHO today receives almost double its normal UN budget in the form of grants and financial support from private industry. The industry? The very drug and vaccine makers who benefit from decisions like the June 2009 H1N1 Pandemic emergency declaration. As the main financiers of the WHO bureaucracy, naturally the Pharma Mafia and their friends receive what has been called “open door red carpet treatment” in Geneva.¹⁷

World Health Organisation ‘Mr Swine Flu’ Under Investigation for Gross Conflict of Interest

Politics / Global Pandemic Dec 08, 2009 - 02:08 PM

By: F_William_Engdahl

HERE to read the complete article

Catching up

Over the next few days I'll probably be posting several times a day as I've recently read some excellent articles on several topics that I'm passionate about.

This is one of the best article I've read about the H1N1 vaccine. The facts are backed up with science and logical medical thinking. please share this article everywhere!

"What's in your H1N1 Flu Vaccine"
By Alex Roslin

Chris Shaw wasn’t always skeptical about vaccines. The neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia had his teenage son vaccinated with most of the recommended shots. But then he started studying some of the ingredients commonly found in vaccines.

What he discovered caused him to go cold turkey on all shots for his six-year-old daughter. And that includes the vaccine for the H1N1 flu.

“I am not convinced H1N1 is sufficiently hazardous to most people to risk the potential downside of the vaccine,” Shaw said over the phone from his office in the research pavilion at the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority...

...

First, the disease. Swine flu had killed 161 Canadians as of November 12. That works out to one death per 200,000 Canadians in the past six-and-a-half months. Over the same period of time, major cardiovascular diseases typically claim 240 times more Canadian lives (about 39,000), cancer claims 230 times more (37,000 deaths), pneumonia kills 18 times more (2,800), and accidental falls claim eight times more (1,260), according to calculations based on 2005 Statistics Canada figures.

H1N1 has about the same death rate as hernias. But we don’t see scary front-page headlines for months on end about hernias, pneumonia, or falling down.

“It’s really not causing—and is not going to cause and nowhere has caused—significant levels of illness or death,” Dr. Richard Schabas, Ontario’s former chief medical officer of health, told the CBC on November 12..."

HERE for the full article