Health industry may have exaggerated the dangers of swine flu

AARRRGH

Am I surprised? No, they pull the same trick every few years.

SARS, Avian Flu, CJD, etc.

Yet it never ceases to amaze me how the gullible public will swallow whatever the "experts" (also known as vested interests) say. This includes educated, intelligent types; naivety doesn't discriminate.

So please, in two or three years time when the WHO etc. ask for billions of euros to fight some new killer disease, try to rememeber they're an industry who make their money from fear. I'm not saying they can't be trusted; I'm saying don't blindly believe everything they say. Use your common sense.

BTW, this applies to every industry, such as our recent example of the public believing estate agents when they said now is the time to buy.

BBC wrote:

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is to review its handling of the HIN1 swine flu pandemic, once it is over.

The WHO has been facing charges from some European politicians that it exaggerated the dangers of swine flu.

More than 12,700 people worldwide have died from H1N1 - but the virus has turned out to less deadly than feared.

However, the WHO initially urged rapid development of treatments and vaccines, fearing the virus had the potential to kill millions.

As a result wealthy countries spent billions on medicines which many believe are now unnecessary.

Across Europe, governments are trying to resell their stockpiles of swine flu vaccine.

The Council of Europe is planning an investigation, to begin later this month, into whether pharmaceutical companies influenced public health officials to spend money unnecessarily.

In Geneva, a WHO spokeswoman acknowledged there were questions to be answered.

She said the the review of its management of the pandemic would be conducted with independent experts, and the results would be made public.

However, the review will not begin until the pandemic itself is declared over - and that could still be months away.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8455035.stm

easyeason3

Thankfully I didn't jump on the swine flu bandwagon & have no intention of doing so either.
I'm a very healthy female with no underlying medical condition so IF i do manage to catch a dose of it then I'll take my chances with letting my body get sick & then get better. Kinda what I do with the ordinary flu.
I hate that there's a vaccine & pill for every illness or potential illness.

I'm looking forward to the day when they invent a vaccine for the 'I've a pain in my hole listening to scaremongers' syndrome. That one I'll gladly take if it works.

Rented Mule

It's a Catch-22 for the WHO and Health Officials.

1) Warn everyone of the dangers of a pandemic
2) Don't warn everyone of the dangers of a pandemic

Either way people are going to be pissed off .....because that's what people do. They bitch and moan about everything.

Jay D

I know you you have the right idea at heart but let's face it, a new virus that is easily spread and can kill quickly would worry anyone.

Over 8000 people died globally from SARS like so it wasn't just a little thing. Fair enough, nothing like our medieval diseases but even still, only for our knowledge of health today, it may easily have been, with the even easier accessibility of transport globally.

I agree drug companies have a field day in times like those but I don't agree that they are blown out of proportion. Don't they need resources to uncover the cause of the said infection, enabling it to be brought to an end? I am not sure how much is allocated to whatever bodies associated but I doubt very much people are handing over money nilly willy without a lot of thought.

Pete M.

Jay D wrote: »

....drug companies have a field day in times.....

..... I doubt very much people are handing over money nilly willy without a lot of thought.

You betcha they are, manna from heaven was the swine flu for 'Pharma'.

And people on the street may not be handing over the dough, but their governments have.

Yeah sure, tis bad, people have died, but it was overblown.

Great way of deflecting attention.

brummytom

Didn't Donald Rumsfeld have some link to the Tamiflu vaccine?


/conspiracy

aidan24326

AARRRGH wrote: »

Am I surprised? No, they pull the same trick every few years.

SARS, Avian Flu, CJD, etc.

All of those were grossly exaggerated. The Foot and Mouth scaremongering was a load of baloney aswell.

brummytom wrote: »

Didn't Donald Rumsfeld have some link to the Tamiflu vaccine?

/conspiracy

He is former chairman and still substantial shareholder of the company (Gilead) that has the patent and licensing rights for tamiflu. So yes he would have made a nice few quid from that for sure.

RoadKillTs

The WHO?

CreepingDeath

AARRRGH wrote: »

Yet it never ceases to amaze me how the gullible public will swallow whatever the "experts" (also known as vested interests) say.

Yeah, the weathermen said it was going to snow... what did they know :rolleyes:
They were in the pockets of the salt & grit producers.

Buford T Justice

RoadKillTs wrote: »

The WHO?

World Health Organisation. - The crowd that laughs as Mary Harney once they find out she is a minister for health

jumpguy

Got Swine Flu myself and then it really sank home how much of an overhyped joke it was. Everyone was saying it, way before this report. "Ah sure, it's just a flu!" Well, they were right.

I personally hope that if pharmeucitical companies are caught in this they suffer the consequences to the letter of the law. It's the same thing done with the banks aswell, I bet you in a year there'll be in an enquiry into the banks "bail us out!!! WE'RE ON THE BRINK!!!"

The guy

Run to the hills is going to have a field day with this.

the_syco

aidan24326 wrote: »

All of those were grossly exaggerated. The Foot and Mouth scaremongering was a load of baloney aswell.

Say that in England where thousands of cows/cattle were destroyed. Ireland took precautions, and didn't get it too hard with it.

Run_to_da_hills

The guy wrote: »

Run to the hills is going to have a field day with this.

Naw, prefere to keep this subject in the correct forum.


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?searchid=10044929

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/search.php?searchid=10044982

aidan24326

the_syco wrote: »

Say that in England where thousands of cows/cattle were destroyed. Ireland took precautions, and didn't get it too hard with it.

I meant that the risk to humans was grossly exaggerated. Humans don't catch foot and mouth except in very rare cases, and it's nigh on impossible to catch it from eating meat. The disease is not normally fatal even to the animals that get it. It makes them sick for a while, they don't thrive very well for a few months, but most will recover. The reason for the huge cull of animals is nothing to do with human safety but more to do with stopping the disease spreading and protecting the agri industry (a move which backfired in 2001 in the UK when 80% of the huge number of animals killed were disease-free so they'd have been better just doing nothing).

ColaBeDamned

RoadKillTs wrote: »

The WHO?

Fingers McGee wrote: »

World Health Organisation. - The crowd that laughs as Mary Harney once they find out she is a minister for health

Caught a fish, RoadKillTs! :pac:

Dave!

It's quite easy to say that it was exaggerated and "only" 13,000 people have died from it so far (though this is believed to be considerably higher), but this is after hundreds of millions of people were given the vaccine -- how many people would have died if there was no vaccine?

The fact is the scientists could not predict how bad it would be -- simply a particularly bad flu season by normal standards (a few hundred thousand die of seasonal flu every year), or a similar pandemic to the ones that killed tens of millions during the last century -- and so they took the safe approach.

Tinfoil hats off, boys !

phantom_lord

Hold on a second.

Your title says "Health industry may have exaggerated the dangers of swine flu", but the article you quoted says the WHO is review its handling of the HIN1 swine flu pandemic. The WHO is not the health industry, and I don't think has any incentive to create a false fear about a heath issue.

Also I think it's being results orientated to say that the threat was exaggerated. As far as they were concerned it appeared that there was likely to be a major threat from this, just because it didn't come to pass does not make what they said wrong.

And personally, as far as I'm concerned I'm quite content with the WHO being overly protective when it comes to threats like this.

phantom_lord

easyeason3 wrote: »

I hate that there's a vaccine & pill for every illness or potential illness.

What an utterly ridiculous thing to say, do you think you could fight off polio on your own too?

Overheal

phantom_lord wrote: »

What an utterly ridiculous thing to say, do you think you could fight off polio on your own too?

Ah now, don't choke him to his word. Obviously, there are exceptions to any rule.

However there are in fact A Lot of curealls out there that claim to fix what ails you.... and then of course 12 months later, theyre typically recalled because in the big rush to market these elixirs, somebody winds up Dead.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drospirenone#Adverse_Drug_Reactions_and_Litigation

Your title says "Health industry may have exaggerated the dangers of swine flu", but the article you quoted says the WHO is review its handling of the HIN1 swine flu pandemic. The WHO is not the health industry, and I don't think has any incentive to create a false fear about a heath issue.

And the US Senate isnt a business but it doesnt mind accepting flattery from lobbyists.

Come now.

You'd really have to Investigate the whole thing, and ask where the findings came from. Who was citing H1N1 as a pandemic, who was pushing these new drugs, where was WHO getting its information from ,etc. etc. etc.

phantom_lord

aidan24326 wrote: »

I meant that the risk to humans was grossly exaggerated.

Any examples of this? I don't think anyone was under the impression at the time that there was a threat to humans.

I agree with what you say here though:

aidan24326 wrote: »

The reason for the huge cull of animals is nothing to do with human safety but more to do with stopping the disease spreading and protecting the agri industry

m@cc@

phantom_lord wrote: »

The WHO is not the health industry, and I don't think has any incentive to create a false fear about a heath issue.

Good god, please tell me your joking. The WHO has representatives from the pharmaceutical industry on it commitees.

phantom_lord

m@cc@ wrote: »

The WHO has representatives from the pharmaceutical industry on it commitees.

I would imagine it would have to. But the people who control the WHO are public health officials.

m@cc@

phantom_lord wrote: »

But the people who control the WHO are public health officials.

Yes and our experiences even in this country with such officials tells us they're all upstanding members of society and not susceptable to fiscal influence??

phantom_lord

The UN isn't Finna Fail.

AARRRGH

phantom_lord wrote: »

The UN isn't Finna Fail.

They're worst than Fianna Fail. Research their corruption in Africa.

My name is URL

lmao, so the conspiracy theorists were actually on to something all along?

whoulda thunk it!

AARRRGH

My name is URL wrote: »

lmao, so the conspiracy theorists were actually on to something all along?

whoulda thunk it!

Not conspiracy theorists, just not totally naive. The world is a corrupt place. To think the health industry is somehow immune from this is rather silly.

Doctors and health officials are not magically better people than say estate agents or bankers. You have to question your information and ask if those giving it have a vested interest in you believing them. It's not surprising that the people shouting loudest about the threat of swine flu were those who received most of the billions we spent on it.

Come on, this is basic common sense.

phantom_lord

AARRRGH wrote: »

It's not surprising that the people shouting loudest about the threat of swine flu were those who received most of the billions we spent on it.

are you still insisting that the WHO is the "health industry" and had something to gain from inflating the threat about this disease?

hooradiation

My name is URL wrote: »

lmao, so the conspiracy theorists were actually on to something all along?

whoulda thunk it!

Or, more truthfully, people who don't understand that certain words have very specific meanings in context claim to be super-smart because "they never believed it for a second".

Basically a circle-jerk for contrarians - typical AH fodder really.

AARRRGH

phantom_lord wrote: »

are you still insisting that the WHO is the "health industry" and had something to gain from inflating the threat about this disease?

I never insisted the WHO were the health industry. That's something you made up.

The WHO are part of the health industry.

Go back and read my post and the story from the BBC. You've misread them.

Stop trying to start an arguement.

phantom_lord

AARRRGH wrote: »

I never insisted the WHO were the health industry. That's something you made up.

um, no, it's not.

as i pointed out earlier:

Your title says "Health industry may have exaggerated the dangers of swine flu", but the article you quoted says the WHO is review its handling of the HIN1 swine flu pandemic. The WHO is not the health industry, and I don't think has any incentive to create a false fear about a heath issue.

Go back and read my post and the story from the BBC. You've misread it.

Nope i haven't. but i think you have misinterpeted this story.

AARRRGH wrote:

Your point is stupid anyway. You're just trying to argue.

No I'm not. I'm just pointing out the fallacies in your thinking.

AARRRGH

hooradiation wrote: »

Or, more truthfully, people who don't understand that certain words have very specific meanings in context claim to be super-smart because "they never believed it for a second".

Basically a circle-jerk for contrarians - typical AH fodder really.

Eh, no.

A few people (me, run to da hills, etc.) were saying the threat is being overhyped. Most disagreed.

Now it appears the minority were correct.

I'm not sure how that has anything to do with people misunderstanding words or being circle-jerk contrarians. If anything, you're the one misunderstanding.

phantom_lord

AARRRGH wrote: »

Now it appears the minority were correct..

That's not true.

AARRRGH

phantom_lord wrote: »

i think you have misinterpeted this story.

You need to read the entire article. You are skipping the bits about the pharmaceutical industry.

Obviously if you only choose to quote certain snippits you can make any point you want.

AARRRGH

phantom_lord wrote: »

That's not true.

How so?

A far smaller number of people have died.

You can't argue with the numbers.

But of course you're going to anyway.

Moojuice

Did you ever think that the reason it turned out to be not as deadly as orignally feared is because of the precautions people took and the actions of the WHO? Increased hand washing, awareness of the symptoms etc would have prevented a lot of infection. As some one else said, catch-22: if they did nothing it could have been deadly. I would prefer over reaction and no pandemic to inaction and a pandemic.

It doesn't matter though, people will find a reason to bitch and moan, complain and claim a conspiracy. The problem is, when there is a genuine problem or crisis of any sort it can get lost among the constant bull****. I know the Pharma industry did well out of, I was talking to guy who worked for the company that makes Tamiflu and he was of the opinion that it saved and created a lot of jobs. I have no doubt that the Pharma industry is up to dodgy tricks in many ways (suppressing results of clinical trials, lobbying government bodies to push through drugs, re-labeling and creating disorders to suit their drugs to extend the patent etc). But whatever the chances of swine-flu being a conspiracy to make money, there is an equal chance that it was a genuine concern.

Its a fact that disease and illness makes some people a lot of money. There is enough sickness and disease in the world for them to continue to make money, whether they need to conspire on a global scale or not.

But the biggest argument against any global conspiracy of any kind is the unpredictability and down right idiocy of the human race. If you have ever worked in a large organisation you will know that nearly ALL mistakes and problems are due to human error. No group of people could carry out a massive conspiracy without some human related ****-up bringing the whole thing down or leaking information about it.

AARRRGH

Moojuice wrote: »

Did you ever think that the reason it turned out to be not as deadly as orignally feared is because of the precautions people took and the actions of the WHO? Increased hand washing, awareness of the symptoms etc would have prevented a lot of infection. As some one else said, catch-22: if they did nothing it could have been deadly. I would prefer over reaction and no pandemic to inaction and a pandemic.

I'm sure people being over-cautious probably did help, but I don't think that's the reason we don't have the high number of fatalities that were predicted.

For example, I would imagine poorer countries who can't afford handwashes etc. should have had far higher fatalities if we use your logic.

But I accept it probably made some sort of difference in Ireland, the UK, the US, etc.

phantom_lord

AARRRGH wrote: »

How so?

A far smaller number of people have died.

You can't argue with the numbers.

But of course you're going to anyway.

I'm going to argue with, and about what those numbers mean, even though you appear to be a conspiricy theory loon so it's going to be a pointless exercise trying to have a logical debate with you.

As I already said:

phantom_lord wrote: »

Also I think it's being results orientated to say that the threat was exaggerated. As far as they were concerned it appeared that there was likely to be a major threat from this, just because it didn't come to pass does not make what they said wrong.

The fact that only that many people died does not mean that the WHO was incorrect it's assessment of the potential threat of the disease or in its precautions.

InKonspikuou2

Who died from this swine flu thing? Mostly old people who normally die from the regular flu. Just another scare mongering load of bollix. I was in Mexico DF at the time it came about and i would see CNN showing Mexicans looking paniced and going about with masks on their face. I didn't notice a panic there and a lot of Mexicans always go around with masks on their face in DF. It's because of the pollution.

hooradiation

AARRRGH wrote: »

Eh, no.

A few people (me, run to da hills, etc.) were saying the threat is being overhyped. Most disagreed.

Now it appears the minority were correct.

I'm not sure how that has anything to do with people misunderstanding words or being circle-jerk contrarians. If anything, you're the one misunderstanding.

Bollox.
You can't even begin to argue that it was 'overhyped' seeing as you have no idea what the outcome would have been had the WHO done less, you're just assuming they did because it fits nicely into your preconceived notion that they were overhyping it.

Typical contrarian nonsense, start with the premise that it's all hype, then try to find information that fits that idea.

The words epidemic and pandemic have very precise meanings when used by the WHO, just because people assume that a pandemic means a plague that will kill us all doesn't mean the WHO overreacted, it means people don't have a clue what these words mean.

Kipperhell

It is a bit like the Y2K thing. If people actually didn't do anything there could have been a problem but as there wasn't some say it was an exaggeration.

AARRRGH

phantom_lord wrote: »

I'm going to argue with, and about what those numbers mean, even though you appear to be a conspiricy theory loon so it's going to be a pointless exercise trying to have a logical debate with you.

There's no need to insult me just because you're pissed off you misread the article and wasted both of our time.

I am quoting an article from the BBC.

I don't understand why you desperately want to believe there can't be any truth to it.

Unless of course you're still misreading it.

phantom_lord wrote: »

The fact that only that many people died does not mean that the WHO was incorrect it's accesment of the potential threat of the disease or in it's precautions.

I accept that, however the health industry have a history of overhyping things. If you go back to the 80s you'll remember they warned we were all at serious risk of AIDS. That never happened, and it's not because we all use condoms because there has been a chlamydia epidemic in Europe for 2 decades.

It's a similar situation with SARS, Avian Flu, CJD, etc.

AARRRGH

Kipperhell wrote: »

It is a bit like the Y2K thing. If people actually didn't do anything there could have been a problem but as there wasn't some say it was an exaggeration.

I worked on the Y2K project. It was mostly nonsense to make money.

Only very specific applications written in a specific language were affected. And those applications had nothing to do with medical equipment or planes or whatever.

AARRRGH

I'm not going to try to convince anyone, you can believe whatever you want, but it's naive to think the health industry are immune from corruption and a desire to make money.

phantom_lord

AARRRGH wrote: »

I don't understand why you desperately want to believe there can't be any truth to it.

excuse me but you're the one desperating believing that this article fits in with your ct theories.

Moojuice

AARRRGH wrote: »

I'm sure people being over-cautious probably did help, but I don't think that's the reason we don't have the high number of fatalities that were predicted.

For example, I would imagine poorer countries who can't afford handwashes etc. should have had far higher fatalities if we use your logic.

But I accept it probably made some sort of difference in Ireland, the UK, the US, etc.

Possibly, but flu and other airborne diseases (afaik) don't do well in hot climates were most of the worlds poor live.

Respiratory related diseases are not as prevalent in some countries, possibly due to the very hot climate. I do think it turned out to be no where near as bad as it was but this is not necessarily a conspiracy, it isjust the way it was and the WHO were cautious about it. Technically speaking it did reach pandemic proportions based on the number and type of deaths. People think a pandemic means something like the bubonic plague, but it has a very precise meaning.

AARRRGH

phantom_lord wrote: »

excuse me but you're the one desperating believing that this article fits in with your ct theories.

Well time will tell who is right.

Based on recent history (SARS, etc.) I suspect it will be me.

My mind is open.

hooradiation

Moojuice wrote: »

Possibly, but flu and other airborne diseases (afaik) don't do well in hot climates were most of the worlds poor live.

Respiratory related diseases are not as prevalent in some countries, possibly due to the very hot climate. I do think it turned out to be no where near as bad as it was but this is not necessarily a conspiracy, it isjust the way it was and the WHO were cautious about it. Technically speaking it did reach pandemic proportions based on the number and type of deaths. People think a pandemic means something like the bubonic plague, but it has a very precise meaning.

Limed for truth.

If more people knew this we'd have less stupid CT threads.

My name is URL

To be fair it was the sensationalist media that blew it out of proportion, not the WHO

you can't really blame people for over-reacting or choosing to ignore it completely because of that very fact

meditraitor

Well done WHO, if they didnt force the health services of 100's of countries to run educational campaigns about flu hygiene and transmition coupled with a flu vaccine program then it would have been much worse...