Overstatement of the Porcine-tury
Remember the H1N1 panic that erupted only last year that sent public health bodies into a frenzy as we braced for worldwide catastrophe? Well, it turns out everything may have been a bit overstated, and that the credibility lost by health organizations could actually endanger lives.
Remember the H1N1 panic that erupted only last year that sent public health bodies into a frenzy as we collectively braced for worldwide catastrophe? Well, it turns out everything may have been a bit overstated, and that the credibility lost by health organizations could actually endanger lives.
The claim, made in a report authored by the Council of Europe, criticizes the World Health Organization and other health bodies for overstating the dangers of the H1N1 strain of influenza, arguing the groups have “gambled away” public confidence and that the loss of credibility could endanger lives. –JCL
Your support matters…The Guardian:
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.
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Sources in Taiwan say that a previously unseen variant of avian influenza infected a 20-year-old woman in that country in the first recorded case of an H6N1 virus infecting and causing disease in a human.
University of Tokyo scientist Yoshihiro Kawaoka is making the case for unfettered access to studies in which researchers made a lethal bird flu virus even deadlier by taking it airborne. To those determined to find it, the recipe is already available, he warns, and the mutation could occur outside the laboratory at any moment. All hands to the urgent task of developing a vaccine, then.
Two reports released Friday are critical of the World Health Organization's handling of the H1N1 flu pandemic -- which was dubbed "exaggeration on stilts" -- as well as the fact that some WHO scientists had previously been on the payroll of big drug companies.
China's authoritarianism has apparently helped the country keep a lid on the global H1N1 pandemic. Similarly populated India has experienced nearly 17 times as many deaths from the disease. The United States, with less than a quarter of China's population, has recorded about 133 times as many deaths. (continued)
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