Pandemic panic, mad-scientist syndrome, and Big Pharma's motivations
Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 12:19 am
This down-to-earth little piece gives a potted history of convenient pandemic panics and their clear financial motivators. A refreshing change from the usual media tripe.
"If anyone dared question this drivel, they were dismissed by Donaldson as 'extremists'. When people started reporting swine flu to be even milder than ordinary flu, he accused them of complacency and told them to 'wait for next winter. He was already buying 32m masks and spending more than £1bn on Tamiflu and vaccines . Surgeries refused entry to those with flu symptoms, referring them to a government 'hotline' where prescription drugs were ordered to be made available without examination or doctor's note. Who knows how many died of undiagnosed illness as a result?
"...
"Mad scientist syndrome is rampant. Had these scares been disseminated by a private firm, a local authority or a newspaper (as was anti-MMR), they would be damned from on high with demands that heads roll. As it is, the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies sails gaily on, still graced by the presence of Sir Roy Anderson , who happens also to draw a six-figure salary as a non-executive director of GlaxoSmithKline, which made hundreds of millions from the government's panic. Anderson, and GSK, vigorously deny any conflict of interest.
"The Council of Europe's head of health, Wolfgang Wodarg , is one of the few who have dared blow the whistle on the links between 'Big Pharma' and national and supranational agencies. He this week persuaded the council to stage a debate on the 'enormous gains' made by GSK and others from the swine flu pandemic. He seeks details of relations between the companies and the WHO, given that stockpile contracts kick in the moment that organisation uses the word 'pandemic'. It did so for the first time last year, with reckless alacrity.
"I am not aware of the WHO or the General Medical Council or any of the medical colleges investigating these matters, or any check on conflicts of interest of government doctors who work for drugs companies. I am not aware of any Whitehall or Commons committee, any National Audit Office or competition inquiry into the supply of these drugs. All I know is that a huge amount of health money, time and effort was last year diverted from possibly critical therapies into what looked from the start to be yet more terror virology.
"This is why people are ever more sceptical of scientists. Why should they believe what 'experts' say when they can be so wrong and with such impunity? Weapons of mass destruction, lethal viruses, nuclear radiation, global warming … why should we believe a word of it? And it is a short step from don't believe to don't care."
John
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"We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honour those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard."
-- Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 10 December 2009
"If anyone dared question this drivel, they were dismissed by Donaldson as 'extremists'. When people started reporting swine flu to be even milder than ordinary flu, he accused them of complacency and told them to 'wait for next winter. He was already buying 32m masks and spending more than £1bn on Tamiflu and vaccines . Surgeries refused entry to those with flu symptoms, referring them to a government 'hotline' where prescription drugs were ordered to be made available without examination or doctor's note. Who knows how many died of undiagnosed illness as a result?
"...
"Mad scientist syndrome is rampant. Had these scares been disseminated by a private firm, a local authority or a newspaper (as was anti-MMR), they would be damned from on high with demands that heads roll. As it is, the government's Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies sails gaily on, still graced by the presence of Sir Roy Anderson , who happens also to draw a six-figure salary as a non-executive director of GlaxoSmithKline, which made hundreds of millions from the government's panic. Anderson, and GSK, vigorously deny any conflict of interest.
"The Council of Europe's head of health, Wolfgang Wodarg , is one of the few who have dared blow the whistle on the links between 'Big Pharma' and national and supranational agencies. He this week persuaded the council to stage a debate on the 'enormous gains' made by GSK and others from the swine flu pandemic. He seeks details of relations between the companies and the WHO, given that stockpile contracts kick in the moment that organisation uses the word 'pandemic'. It did so for the first time last year, with reckless alacrity.
"I am not aware of the WHO or the General Medical Council or any of the medical colleges investigating these matters, or any check on conflicts of interest of government doctors who work for drugs companies. I am not aware of any Whitehall or Commons committee, any National Audit Office or competition inquiry into the supply of these drugs. All I know is that a huge amount of health money, time and effort was last year diverted from possibly critical therapies into what looked from the start to be yet more terror virology.
"This is why people are ever more sceptical of scientists. Why should they believe what 'experts' say when they can be so wrong and with such impunity? Weapons of mass destruction, lethal viruses, nuclear radiation, global warming … why should we believe a word of it? And it is a short step from don't believe to don't care."
John
--
------------------------------------------------------------------
"We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend. And we honour those ideals by upholding them not just when it is easy, but when it is hard."
-- Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, 10 December 2009