Billions wasted over swine flu, says Paul Flynn MP - BBC Newshttps://www.bbc.com/news/10396382Billions of pounds in public money were wasted worldwide on buying drugs to combat a swine flu "pandemic that never was", says Newport West MP Paul Flynn.
He has compiled a report on the H1N1 virus for the Council of Europe.
He told BBC Wales' Dragon's Eye the World Health Organisation (WHO) made a "terrible mistake" in causing panic.
WHO said it reminded the public in its pandemic assessments that most people had mild symptoms and made a full recovery without medical treatment.
Dr Tony Jewell, chief medical officer for Wales, said: "It is easy with hindsight to say things should have been done differently."
Mr Flynn, one of the 47 parliamentarians from across Europe who sits on the human rights-focused Council of Europe, said: "They [WHO] frightened the whole world with the possibility that a major plague was on the way."
He added: "The result of that was that the world spent billions and billions of pounds on vaccines and anti-virals that will never be used. It is huge waste of money."
Mr Flynn's report will be debated by the Council of Europe later.
He claimed that the decision by WHO, a body of the United Nations, to declare a pandemic had been influenced by pharmaceutical companies.
He said: "The firewall that should exist between the commercial interests, the pharmaceutical bodies, and the scientists has been breached.
"We know the only people who benefited were pharmaceutical companies. They had a huge influence in defining what a pandemic is."Mr Flynn said WHO was not being transparent in not explaining who had sat on the emergency committee that had declared H1N1 a pandemic.
'Resources distorted'
He said as a result "resources and priorities in health services in dozens of countries were distorted".
Globally, more than 15,000 people died as a result of the H1N1 virus compared to the two to four million deaths that had been predicted by WHO, he said.
"The mistake was to say this was the most dangerous form of flu. It created vast over-buying that wasn't necessary," said Mr Flynn.
WHO has rejected Mr Flynn's conclusions, saying they had not exaggerated the dangers.
In a statement, it said: "In every assessment of the pandemic, WHO consistently reminded the public that the overwhelming majority of patients experienced mild symptoms and made a rapid and full recovery, even without medical treatment."
Mr Flynn said governments, while "damned if they acted, and damned if they didn't," did have a choice in how they responded to the warning from WHO.
While the UK spent £500m on anti-viral drugs that will now never be used, Poland spent nothing, explained Mr Flynn.
The UK ordered 90 million doses of H1N1 vaccine and 4.63 million doses were used in England.
Vaccines and public awareness campaigns cost Wales £35m, according to official figures.
'Clear response'
Dr Jewell said: "Our response to the pandemic has been clear.
"When the infection first arrived, we didn't know how severe it would be and the potential impact. Therefore the only prudent course of action was to plan for a worst-case scenario - based on scientific advice. To do otherwise would have been irresponsible."
A spokesperson for the Department for Health, in England, said that pandemic decisions had been based on advice from independent experts.
"The response was the result of careful preparation and thoughtful consideration, this continues to be the case.
"It is important that we learn lessons. A review into the WHO's handling of the pandemic is currently underway and this is happening in the UK too. This will ensure we remain one of the best prepared countries in the world for any future pandemics."
Mr Flynn said that while WHO had done incredible work, including eliminating smallpox,
it had "cried wolf four times".
He said: "With Sars, CJD, avian flu and swine flu, none of them justified the billing as mass killers.
"WHO can't go on crying wolf and expect to have its views respected."WHO convened a panel earlier this year to conduct a "credible and independent review" of how it and national authorities handled the outbreak.
Two experts on the panel resigned recently because of their close ties to the UN health body and concerns over conflict of interest.WHO accused of losing public confidence over flu pandemic | World Health Organization | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/mar/28/who-public-confidence-flu-pandemicLoss of credibility could endanger lives, says vice chair of Council of Europe's health committee
Sarah Boseley
Sun 28 Mar 2010 18.37 BST
The World Health Organisation and other public health bodies have "gambled away" public confidence by overstating the dangers of the flu pandemic, according to a draft report to the Council of Europe.
The report, by the Labour MP Paul Flynn, vice chair of the council's health committee, says that a loss of credibility could endanger lives.
"This decline in confidence could be risky in the future," says the report, seen by the Guardian. "When the next pandemic arises many persons may not give full credibility to recommendations put forward by WHO and other bodies. They may refuse to be vaccinated and may put their own health and lives at risk."
In Britain, says Flynn, the discrepancy between the estimate of the numbers of people who would die from flu and the reality was dramatic. "In the United Kingdom, the
Department of Health initially announced that around 65,000 deaths were to be expected. In the meantime, by the start of 2010, this estimate was downgraded to only 1,000 fatalities. By January 2010, fewer than 5,000 persons had been registered as having caught the disease and about 360 deaths had been noted," says his report.The public health minister, Gillian Merron, told Flynn in a meeting for the report that a Cabinet Office investigation was looking into Britain's handling of the outbreak and would report some time after June. Countries across Europe reacted very differently to the pandemic, says the report. Not all mounted high-profile vaccination campaigns, as did the UK.
Flynn's draft accuses the WHO of a lack of transparency. Some members of its advisory groups are flu experts who have also received funding, especially for research projects, from pharmaceutical companies making drugs and vaccines against flu."The neutrality of their advice could be contested," says the report. "To date, WHO has failed to provide convincing evidence to counter these allegations and the organisation has not published the relevant declarations of interest. Taking such a reserved position, the organisation has joined other bodies, such as the European Medicines Agency, which likewise, have still not published such documents."
Flynn's report was commissioned by the Council of Europe's parliamentary assembly, which is holding an inquiry into the handling by European bodies and governments of the flu pandemic. The second evidence session will be held in Paris tomorrow. The witnesses will include the Polish health minister, Ewa Kopacz, who will explain why her government decided not to order any H1N1 vaccines.
At the first evidence session, in January, some experts criticised the dramatic comparisons made last year between the novel strain of H1N1 circulating in Europe and the devastating Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. Professor Ulrich Keil, epidemiologist and director of the WHO collaborating centre on epidemiology of the University of Münster in Germany pointed out in evidence that the Spanish flu broke out in the very different circumstances of the first world war, where infections were easily transmitted by undernourished soldiers and there was an absence of medicines such as penicillin.One of the central questions of the Council of Europe inquiry, says Flynn, "concerns the possibility for representatives of the pharmaceutical industry to directly influence public decisions taken with regard to the H1N1 influenza, and the question of whether some of their statements had been adopted as public health recommendations without being based on sufficient scientific evidence". He cites as an example the decision to recommend two doses of flu vaccine for children, which was later questioned.
"Various factors have led to the suspicion that there may have been undue influence by the pharmaceutical industry, notably the possibility of conflicts of interest of experts represented in WHO advisory groups, the early stage of preparing contractual arrangements between member states and pharmaceutical companies as well as the actual profits that companies were able to realise as a result of the influenza pandemic," says the draft report, which will be finalised when all the evidence has been taken, at the end of April.