International Hearings Begin
On "Falsified" Swine Flu Pandemic
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, a 47 nation
body encompassing democratically elected members of parliament,
has begun hearings to investigate whether the H1N1 swine flu pandemic
was falsified or exaggerated in an attempt to profit from vaccine
sales.
A PACE
resolution, passed last month, gave context to the hearings
which began yesterday in Strasbourg.
In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines
against flu, pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and
official agencies, responsible for public health standards to
alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health
resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly expose
millions of healthy people to the risk of an unknown amount of
side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines. The "bird-flu"-campaign
(2005/06) combined with the "swine-flu"-campaign seem
to have caused a great deal of damage not only to some vaccinated
patients and to public health-budgets, but to the credibility
and accountability of important international health-agencies.
Heading the hearings will be chairman of the Health Committee
of PACE, Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, a former German lawmaker, a medical
doctor and epidemiologist. Wodarg has referred to the swine flu
pandemic as "one of the greatest medical scandals of the
century."
Wodarg charges that the WHO altered the definition of a pandemic
from an outbreak in several continents at once with an above-average
death rate, to one where the spread of the disease is constant.
The Parliamentary inquiry will determine if a "falsified
pandemic" was declared by WHO in June 2009 on the advice
of medical advisors, many of whom have close financial ties to
the very pharmaceutical giants - GlaxoSmithKline, Roche, Novartis,
- that produced the H1N1 vaccines.
It will also look into the controversy surrounding the fact that
two shots were initially advised when it was later revealed that
one dose was entirely suitable.
Pharmaceutical companies are thought to have made a profit of
somewhere in the region of $7.5-$10 billion on H1N1 vaccines.
The worldwide death toll from H1N1 is thought to be around 13,500,
just over a third of the number who die from regular flu every
year in the U.S. alone.
PACE has noted that the alleged conspiracy could have exposed
"millions of healthy people to the risk of side-effects of
insufficiently tested vaccines".
Many countries have begun offloading huge stockpiles
of unused vaccines and canceling outstanding orders. The latest
to do so is Greece,
where the government had announced that it would make
H1N1 vaccination mandatory.
PACE will also hold a debate next week entitled Faked
pandemics, a threat to health, to be attended by representatives
of the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the European pharmaceutical
industry.
"Unlike the European Parliament, it has no decision-making
powers, but, as was demonstrated by its report into extraordinary
rendition, it does have the power to make life uncomfortable for
the powers that be," notes the Irish
TImes.
January 19, 2010
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