Pharmaceutical companies and medical manufacturers have come under fire after it was revealed that they may have played a role in the H1N1 scare that resulted in boosted sales by producing vaccines for what was classified as a pandemic.
Accusations have surfaced that there was a distortion in claims of an Influenza type A epidemic. This is a virus subtype of H1N1, commonly referred to as swine flu. Type A Influenza is regarded as A/H1N1 and it is believed that the distortion was an effort to boost the sales of Influenza medicine and vaccine manufacturers.
The U.S. and the Council of Europe member states have launched investigations into these allegations, reporting that they will look into the possibility of undue influence by the pharmaceutical industry on WHO, particularly in regard to the H1N1 campaign. According to the Global Research website, the Health Committee of the EU Parliament had unanimously passed a resolution calling for the inquiry.
The committee alleges that the declaration of a pandemic by WHO in June 2009 on the advice of its group of academic experts was questionable and that most of the experts allegedly had significant financial ties to the same pharmaceutical giants, such as GlaxoSmithKline, Roche and Novartis, that would benefit from vaccine production.
Chairman of the EP Health Committee, a medical doctor and epidemiologist, Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, told the European Parliament that the “pandemic” swine flu campaign initiated by WHO was “one of the greatest medicine scandals” of the century.
In his official statement to the committee, Dr Wodarg criticized the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on scientists and officials of WHO, stating that it has led to a situation where, “Unnecessarily millions of healthy people are exposed to the risk of poorly tested vaccines,” and all for a flu strain that is “vastly less harmful” than any previous flu epidemis.
The inquiry will be given “urgent priority” in the general assembly of the parliament, according to Global Research’s William Engdahl in the report dated Thursday, 31 December 2009. All the pharmaceutical bodies issued denials against the allegations that they had influenced the WHO to issue the pandemic.
DTiNews spoke with representatives from the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Vietnam to see their response on this global issue.
“There is no evidence for these accusations,” said Dr. Jean Marc Olivé, Chief Representative of WHO in Vietnam. “WHO predicted this situation could happen during the development of A/H1N1 influenza pandemic. After the investigations, WHO will announce the results. WHO cooperates with many individuals to access all necessary information on public health issues. WHO’s member countries work on this issue independently and seriously in order to prevent any influence or conflict of interest,” added Olivé.
According to information provided to Cayman Net News, the WHO criteria for a pandemic was changed in April 2009 as the first Mexican cases were reported, to make the number of actual cases of the disease as the basis to declare a “pandemic,” rather than the actual risk of a disease.
“It is not immediately possible for us to determine whether there is a scandal or not,” said Dr Kumar, Medical Officer of Health (MOH) and Director of Public Health, “but we shall certainly act after the European Union has reviewed and come up with an answer.”
