WHO cried wolf?

Amid a brewing scandal in Europe that the Swine Flu pandemic was just a massive ponzi scheme by Pharmaceutical companies to artificially boost sales by influencing politicians, media and WHO officials, governments are now trying to sell most of their stocks of the vaccine.
Billions of dollars worth of the vaccine were purchased, possibly millions of people were given the shot because of advice and influence from sources they trusted.

What are the implications for the future?

Well, let's take a moment to consider one hypothetical but frightening scenario -

The year is 2012.
From Asia comes reports of a deadly new flu that has traces of Avian, Swine, Human and Panda Bear DNA.
It has already ravaged remote rural villages but now some cases are being reported in major cities.

The WHO is monitoring the situation carefully.
The world's population yawns.

Suddenly cases are reported all over the world. The estimated death toll will be millions.
The WHO declares a global pandemic.

Pharmaceutical companies rush to produce a highly effective vaccine. An incredible effort, in a very short time.

Governments ignore them, they don't have the money to buy the vaccine anyway. Not after the last scare.

The world yawns.

In the end, the death toll reaches 1.3 billion people.

The New Dark Age begins.


Links
online.wsj.com...

news.bbc.co.uk...

www.google.com...

Not to worry my friend. I believe we haven't seen the last of the piggy flu.

I have notice a few announcements that the piggy flu just may be coming back for a second punch on our flu weary population.

That would certainly be helpful for those holding stocks of the vaccine.

I hope I'm wrong but keep your eyes open for another deadly siege of the piggy nightmare.

reply to post by dizziedame


Personally, I would be a little wary of those announcements. Swine flu is still around, but it is not as deadly as claimed. Has it mutated?
Is there evidence for this?

Governments need to get rid of their excess stock - so are they having a going out of business sale? Half-price flu vaccines?
What would I do if I was in their shoes? Well, I would advertise that swine flu is back. And it's worse than ever.

reply to post by deltaalphanovember


oh my God not another round, the first was almost to much to bare.
Ckicken Little! It twas Chicken Little, what was doin oll the snivlen.
Bout the sky is a fallin. Yes he ran right past me down at the burger
coral. Screamin the bledin sky's crashin down upon me head.
Oh did I mention he was snivlen too. Well he was.

reply to post by deltaalphanovember


Apparently it has mutuated according to this article


Some quotes from it:

owever, with the deaths of two French patients infected by the same mutation as that recently found in Norway, there is growing evidence that the more virulent mutated strain is spreading.

"The mutation could increase the ability of the virus to affect the respiratory tracts and, in particular, the lung tissue," France's Health Surveillance Institute said. However, it said that the vaccine remains effective against the mutation.

[edit on 13/1/2010 by BlackPoison94]

@BlackPoison94

This article was published a month and a half ago - and is linked to the Ukraine outbreak. Something else that appears to have fizzled out.

"deaths worldwide on the rise" - Wrong! Everywhere else, scientists, doctors and governments are saying that the death toll and incidence of swine flu is decreasing.

"the vaccine remains effective" - convenient. This article is a puff piece ... submitted by someone to make sure the vaccine sales go ticking along nicely. Reporting billion dollar profits is good for the share price.
Reporting huge inventories of stock that has an expiration date, is not.

Let's look at your source - Digital Journal:

DigitalJournal.com is an international news network where thousands of citizen reporters ("Digital Journalists") contribute from 140 countries around the world.[1]

en.wikipedia.org...

Citizen reporters?

Edit to indicate who I am replying to.

[edit on 13/1/2010 by deltaalphanovember]

This is a tough call. The flu virus is well known to have highly variable severity depending upon the specific strain. There is no way to be certain about a particular strain's risk at the outset; only its potential. From everything I've read (in credible sources) this particular strain was potentially dangerous.

So what to do? Does the world health network err on the side of caution and launch a full-court-press against the virus and plan for a worst-case-scenario? Or do they just take a wait-and-see approach?

If they go with the latter approach and the virus turns out to be highly lethal and highly pathogenic we find ourselves in a catastrophic and deadly pandemic with absolutley nothing we can do.

If they go with the more cautious approach there is the risk that their handling will be viewed as needless over-reaction. As we are seeing here on ATS and elsewhere.

Personally I believe this whole situation is far more complex than people want to believe. Was pharma a happy camper about the money they could make? Sure. People who made blue plastic tarps were thrilled about Katrina, too. But in the end, for my money, I think the healthcare network made the right call. Had it gone the other way it could have been far, far worse.

reply to post by jtma508


Personally I think that is what they were gambling on. By "they", I mean the people who had manufactured this incident - and gambled on the fact that they would make a lot of money.
The gamble was that the WHO and world governments would take the bait and bow to pressure from their citizens to buy the vaccines.

No, I don't have proof.

This thread is about the next real pandemic (ok, assume this one was real and manufactured) - will people react quickly enough the next time?

Maybe not. And maybe that will end up being the REAL risk presented by the H1N1 situation. Kinda like hurricane warnings. After a couple evacuation orders that don't pan-out people are more likely to stay on the next one and get katrina'd.

reply to post by jtma508


Ah, now you get my point. I think in the future, pandemic warnings should be used a little less liberally.

If there is a true pandemic, a few people may die as a result of a less warning/preparation - but at least people may take heed in time.

Better than having all warnings ignored because people are tired of false alarms.

No, I got yur point. The thing is, unlike hurricanes that can be accurately tracked, flu pandemic development is impossible to predict accurately ahead of time. What makes matters worse, the lead-time required for flu preparation (vaccine development and such) is very long. So again, if we wait until we have better data on a developing flu pandemic it will be way too late to do anything about it. And the price for that could be worse then the 1918 horror. It's a very difficult decision to make.

reply to post by jtma508


It is a bit of an ethical dilemma ... I guess it all depends on motives. If I truly believed that what happened with Swine Flu 2009 was truly caused by nature, and the responses by the WHO and other officials were absolutely altruistic, then by all means, declare a pandemic. Let governments stockpile vaccines.

But DO NOT absolve the pharmaceutical companies from being sued or prosecuted if their vaccines happen to be toxic.

Make all their Executives take the vaccine publically from a vaccine drawn at random from off-the-shelf stocks.

Then we will see....