H1N1 pandemic: 'unjustified scare' and waste of public money

Sarah Herman

The handling of the H1N1 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), along with European Union agencies and national governments, resulted in a "waste of large sums of public money, and unjustified scares and fears about the health risks faced by the European public" according to a report published by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

The report, which was prepared by Welsh MP Paul Flynn, was published earlier this month and presented to a committee in Strasbourg. The report identified evidence that the WHO "vastly overrated" the severity of the H1N1 situation and ultimately brought about a distortion in public health priorities.

Whilst presenting his report, Mr. Flynn told the PACE committee, "this was a pandemic that never really was" and claimed that the vaccination programme was a "placebo machine on a large scale."

Mr. Flynn said that he was "particularly alarmed by some of the excessive responses given to what turned out to be an influenza of moderate severity, and also the lack of transparency of relevant decision-making processes and the possible undue influence of pharmaceutical groups on central decisions."

In particular, the WHO and European health institutions were not willing to publish the names and declarations of interest of the members of the WHO Emergency Committee and relevant European advisory bodies directly involved in recommendations concerning the H1N1 pandemic, the parliamentarians pointed out.

Conflicts of interest

The PACE report follows a steady flow of criticism of the WHO's handling of the H1N1 pandemic and the British Medical Journal (BMJ), in a joint enquiry with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, unveiled conflicts of interest among the agency's expert scientists, finding that three scientists involved in putting together the 2004 guidance had allegedly previously been paid by drug majors Roche or GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) for lecturing and consultancy work as well as being involved in research for the firms. Roche and GSK manufacture H1N1 vaccines Tamiflu and Relenza, respectively.

Fiona Godlee, the Editor-in-Chief of the BMJ, attended the parliamentary assembly and said that "For WHO, its credibility has been badly damaged." She also stated that "WHO must act now to restore its credibility."

On Mr. Flynn's blog he wrote: "The UK ordered enough vaccines for 80 percent of the population to have two doses. Only about 15 percent will be used. The rest will be junk by the end of the year. National Government had little choice. They would have been damned if they panicked and damned if they did not."

The report by Mr. Flynn was triggered by claims made in January 2010 by the health committee's then-chairman Wolfgang Wodarg that a "false epidemic" was being generated by by undue industry influence.

Mr. Flynn has drawn attention to the numerous pandemics which have been publicised by the WHO in recent years and claimed that the organisation has been repeatedly guilty of scaremongering and creating widespread panic that was totally unnecessary.

"The World Health Organization's reputation is hanging by a thread," Mr. Flynn claimed. "Four times they have cried wolf. SARS, BSE/CJD, Avian Flu, Swine Flu were sold as modern plagues. They were all minor events. The WHO will not get away with it again."

The WHO hits back

The committee said that during presentation of the report in Strasbourg, the WHO was "highly defensive" and unwilling to accept that the definition of a pandemic needed to be made, or that the organisation needed to revise its prognosis of the H1N1 outbreak.

"The idea that we declared a pandemic when there wasn't a pandemic is both historically inaccurate and downright irresponsible," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl told the Boston Globe. "There is no doubt that this was a pandemic. To insinuate that this was not a pandemic is very disrespectful to the people who died from it."

Mr. Hartyl completely denied claims that a number of WHO scientists had been been in the pockets of drug firms and said that "WHO would say categorically that it believes that it has not been subject to undue conflict-of-interest."

Mr. Hartyl continued: "We know that some experts that come to our committees have contact with industry. It would be surprising if they didn't because the best experts are sought by all organizations. We feel that the guidelines produced were certainly not subject to undue influence."

The next stage

The committee set out a series of urgent recommendations for greater transparency and better governance in public health, as well as safeguards against what it calls "undue influence by vested interests". It has also called for a public fund to be created which would support independent research, trials and expert advice, which the pharmaceutical industry could be obliged to finance.

Closer collaboration between the pharmaceutical industry and the media is also necessary, said the committee, in order to avoid "sensationalism and scaremongering in the public health domain."

The committee also claimed that there is an "urgent" need for a thorough review of all the decisions made by public health authorities during the H1N1 pandemic.

Parliamentarians from all 47 Council of Europe member states are due to discuss and debate the report's findings on 24 June 2010, during PACE's summer session in Strasbourg.

Mr. Flynn has said that wider coverage of the report's findings on the H1N1 pandemic is needed and that he is hoping for the Cabinet Office's report on Britain's role in the situation is published. This would mean that these issues could "become a news item" he said, and "I hope it will not be a whitewash."

"The reputation of the WHO is in jeopardy" Mr. Flynn wrote last Friday. "Today I heard that they may reject the invitation to give evidence in Strasbourg. Their absence may be more eloquent of guilt than any testimony they could give. The reputation of the WHO must be restored. That can only come after they have admitted their grave error."

Related links:

H1N1 official report | GSK adaptable on H1N1 vaccine | Experts advise WHO, 'pandemic yet to peak' | Novartis to get swine flu windfall? | Can swine-flu infect deep inside lungs? | Tamiflu drug