Time to start the swine flu blame game

It’s official: The swine flu “pandemic” is now an embarrassing fiasco.

And let the blaming begin!

You know things have really broken down when World Health Organization officials have to publicly deny that drug companies influenced WHO’s reaction to the H1N1 virus.

No doubt, WHO officials have a tough job. If they overreact to an epidemic (as they did with H1N1), they look like drug company stooges. But if they under react and millions die on their watch, they look like inept stooges. So they have to get it exactly right or they lose, and lose big.

Last month, WHO began an internal review of the organization’s handling of H1N1. A WHO official told Reuters, “We will consider whether we can define things better.”

Good call! Because defining–or rather “redefining”–is what got them into this mess.

As I mentioned about four months ago, WHO actually changed the definition of “pandemic” in May of 2009. Under the old definition, “enormous number of deaths” were required. The new definition dropped that requirement.

And the media LOVED it! News anchors immediately started calling H1N1 a pandemic and speculated wildly about how many millions might die. The result: widespread fear–the perfect atmosphere for selling TONS of vaccines.

Maybe drug companies really didn’t influence the WHO H1N1 policy. But what we do know for sure is that the definition change was a great big beautiful gift to those companies.

Too bad Reuters missed that one little detail in their report.

To Your Good Health,

Jenny Thompson

Source:
“WHO Denies Drug Firms Swayed its Flu Decisions” Reuters Health, 1/26/10, reutershealth.com