AH1N1 called a ''scam''

 

 

A health expert at the World Health Organisation (WHO) has accused the pandemic as a setup of a few giant drug companies and the WHO.

 

Calling the pandemic ''one of the largest medical scandals of this century'', German epidemiologist and head of health at WHO, Wolfgang Wodarg, said the WHO softened the definition of a pandemic because scientists asked for it and that giant drug companies were able to cash in on sealed contracts for vaccines.

 

As a result, millions of euros were wasted on vaccination campaigns and thousands of livestock found positive with the AH1N1 virus were culled.

 

The European Council said it would like to investigate the accusations, which bodes ill for the drug companies.

 

By July 2009, the virus killed less than a classic seasonal flu would but it was still listed as a pandemic.

 

GlaxoSmithKline turned over an estimated US$1.7 billion selling AH1N1 vaccines in the fourth quarter of 2009.

 

Countries like France, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands are now facing unused stocks of the vaccine, which they are trying to get rid of or give away.

 

Wodarg said that ''WHO in cooperation with pharmaceutical companies has softened the definition of a pandemic and thus lowered the alarm level, which enabled governments to order large amounts of vaccines.''

 

Wodarg said there was no reason for doing this anymore from June 2009 on, as a result of the bird flu outbreaks a few years ago. The H5N1 bird flu virus, which is far more deadly than AH1N1 made governments order sealed contracts with drug companies.

 

In case of a pandemic, drug companies could effectuate these sealed contracts into real contracts.

 

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, said Wodarg.

 

If the European Council establishes that the entire affair was a voluntary and cynical misleading by pharmaceutical companies, it is considered a crime and pay back will be demanded.