Swine flu 'a false pandemic' to sell vaccines, expert says
https://www.news.com.au/world/swine-flu/news-story/0420b8681e484b114289488461b6d8d4
CLAIMS swine flu is a "false pandemic" used to see vaccines are "historically and medically inaccurate", Australia's top medical official said.
2009 swine flu pandemic - Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_swine_flu_pandemic#Accusations_of_conflict_of_interest
Accusations of conflict of interest
In January 2010, Wolfgang Wodarg, a German deputy who trained as a physician and now chairs the health committee at the Council of Europe, claimed major firms had organized a "campaign of panic" to put pressure on the World Health Organization (WHO) to declare a "false pandemic" to sell vaccines. Wodarg said the WHO's "false pandemic" flu campaign is "one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century". He said that the "false pandemic" campaign began in May 2009 in Mexico City, when a hundred or so "normal" reported influenza cases were declared to be the beginning of a threatening new pandemic, although he said there was little scientific evidence for it. Nevertheless, he argued that the WHO, "in cooperation with some big pharmaceutical companies and their scientists, re-defined pandemics," removing the statement that "an enormous amount of people have contracted the illness or died" from its existing definition and replacing it by stating simply that there has to be a virus, spreading beyond borders and to which people have no immunity.[111]
The WHO responded by stating that they take their duty to provide independent advice seriously and guarded against interference from outside interests. Announcing a review of the WHO's actions, spokeswoman Fadela Chaib stated: "Criticism is part of an outbreak cycle. We expect and indeed welcome criticism and the chance to discuss it".[112][113] In March 2010, the Council of Europe launched an enquiry into "the influence of the pharmaceutical companies on the global swine flu campaign", and a preliminary report is in preparation.[114]
On 12 April 2010, Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's top influenza expert, stated that the system leading to the declaration of a pandemic led to confusion about H1N1 circulating around the world and he expressed concern that there was a failure to communicate in regard to uncertainties about the new virus, which turned out to be not as deadly as feared. WHO Director-General Margaret Chan appointed 29 flu experts from outside the organization to conduct a review of WHO's handling of the H1N1 flu pandemic. She told them, "We want a frank, critical, transparent, credible and independent review of our performance."[115]
In June 2010, Fiona Godlee, editor-in-chief of the BMJ, published an editorial which criticised the WHO, saying that an investigation had disclosed that some of the experts advising WHO on the pandemic had financial ties with drug companies which were producing antivirals and vaccines.[116] Margaret Chan, Director-General of the WHO, replied stating, "Without question, the BMJ feature and editorial will leave many readers with the impression that WHO's decision to declare a pandemic was at least partially influenced by a desire to boost the profits of the pharmaceutical industry. The bottom line, however, is that decisions to raise the level of pandemic alert were based on clearly defined virological and epidemiological criteria. It is hard to bend these criteria, no matter what the motive
Conflicts of interest and pandemic flu | The BMJ
https://www.bmj.com/content/340/bmj.c2947.full#ref-1
An investigation by the BMJ and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, published this week (doi:10.1136/bmj.c2912), finds that this was far from the case.2 As reported by Deborah Cohen and Philip Carter, some of the experts advising WHO on the pandemic had declarable financial ties with drug companies that were producing antivirals and influenza vaccines. As an example, WHO’s guidance on the use of antivirals in a pandemic was authored by an influenza expert who at the same time was receiving payments from Roche, the manufacturer of oseltamivir (Tamiflu), for consultancy work and lecturing.