Council of Europe Committee Report Denounces Unjustified Swine Flu Scare, Waste of Public Money

Attached is the press release from the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) outlining the conclusions of the provisional PACE report, The handling of the H1N1 pandemic: more transparency needed. The Press Release  denounces the unjustified Swine Flu scare and waste of public money. Fiona Godlee, Editor-in-Chief of the British Medical Journal,  told the Council that, according to an investigation by her journal, scientists who drew up key WHO guidelines on stockpiling flu vaccines had previously been paid by drug companies which stood to profit.

Meanwhile, here in New Brunswick, Canada, on the same day the Council of Europe report was released questioning the handling of the H1N1 flu our Department of Health announced plans to expand  our seasonal flu vaccination program to cover all children under 18 "after the success of last fall's H1N1 campaign."  The Department of Health Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Van Buynter measured success solely by the large numbers of New Brunswickers who received the H1N1 shot.  There is no mention of the many credible voices, in Canada and in Europe who have questioned whether the scare campaign launched in Europe and elsewhere including here in New Brunswick was justified.

Press release - 455(2010)

PACE Health Committee denounces ‘unjustified scare’ of Swine Flu, waste of public money

Strasbourg, 04.06.2010 – The handling of the H1N1 pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO), EU agencies and national governments led to 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 by the Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) made public today in Paris.

The report, prepared by Paul Flynn (United Kingdom, SOC) and approved today by the committee ahead of a plenary debate at the end of this month, says there was “overwhelming evidence that the seriousness of the pandemic was vastly overrated by WHO”, resulting in a distortion of public health priorities.

Presenting his report, Mr Flynn told the committee: “this was a pandemic that never really was”, and described the vaccination programme as “placebo medicine on a large scale” (see video below).

In its adopted text, the committee identifies what it calls “grave shortcomings” in the transparency of decision-making about the outbreak, generating concerns about the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on decisions taken. Plummeting confidence in such advice could prove “disastrous” in the case of a severe future pandemic, it warns.

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 pandemic, the parliamentarians point out.

However, attending the meeting was Fiona Godlee, the Editor-in-Chief of the British Medical Journal, who told the parliamentarians that, according to an investigation by her journal, scientists who drew up key WHO guidelines on stockpiling flu vaccines had previously been paid by drug companies which stood to profit.

The WHO has been “highly defensive”, the committee said, and unwilling to accept that a change in the definition of a pandemic was made, or to revise its prognosis of the Swine Flu outbreak.

The committee sets 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 also calls for a public fund to support independent research, trials and expert advice, possibly financed by an obligatory contribution of the pharmaceutical industry, as well as closer collaboration with the media to avoid “sensationalism and scaremongering in the public health domain”.

The report is due to be debated by parliamentarians from all 47 Council of Europe member states on Thursday 24 June during PACE’s summer session in Strasbourg.

Contacts

In Paris: Francesc Ferrer, mobile: +33 (0)6 30 49 68 22

In Strasbourg: PACE Communication Division, tel. +33 (0)3 88 41 31 93, mobile: +33 (0)6 30 49 68 20

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NY Times: Swine Flu Virus Will Not Be Abnormally Lethal

Our own take is this: A swine flu epidemic this fall and winter is likely to infect more people than a normal flu, but the virus will not be abnormally lethal.

New York Times Editorial, August 31, 2009

Not to downplay the tragedy of any death, and the impact on families and friends, but it is difficult to see why world governments have reacted with such panic to the Swine Flu (H1N1) version of the flu, the ordinary versions of which kill people every year. Massive investments of public funds have gone into development of vaccines which are being rushed into production. The NYT editorial points out that only 54 residents of the large population NYC area died in last springs Swine Flu outbreak. And the virus has not become more virulent as it proceeds around the world.

Some of these vaccines are going first to young children and pregnant women. Vaccine's Don't Cause Autism spokesman Paul Offit should watch the outcome of that "experiment". "Adjuvants" of unknown effect will be included in some vaccines AND in the US vaccine manufacturers have been granted liability immunity.

Again, every single death is a real tragedy, and hopefully deaths will be reduced even further by the massive immunization program that the health authorities are pushing. Hopefully too though public health authorities will keep reasonably accurate records of possible side effects of these rushed into production vaccines including the development of Guillain-Barré syndrome, and GBS deaths, as occurred in 1976, and .... any autism diagnosis increases amongst the populations of young children and children born of women who received the Swine Flu vaccines.

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Swine Flu Pandemic? Swine Flu Cases Falling Across the UK

"Across the UK the number of new cases of swine-flu are falling. Department of Health figures show that in the past week there were 5,000 infections in England - compared to over 100,000 at the start of the month."

BBC News, Friday, 28 August 2009 06:54 UK

Is this what the WHO and the CDC mean by a pandemic?

I am not trying to be glib about swine flu, or any influenza. I understand that the flu, swine, avian, or whatever variety of flu I contracted many times over the course of my life in Canada, can kill some people. Flu complications may bring my brief visit to this planet to an end some day but I have difficulty seeing why people around the world have been whipped into a panic over this specific flu, billions of dollars invested, testing of the safety and efficacy of vaccines rushed ... and possibly compromised ... based on available rate of infection and death information to date. And their previous track record at pandemic prediction ... the 1976 swine flu "pandemic" for example ... is not that great.

The figures below are taken from the Public Health Agency of Canada web site and indicate the number of people that have died from Swine Flu (H1N1) across Canada:

Every death is a tragedy for that person and those that know and love them. But the figures above, for an estimated population of 33,760,560 according to Statistics Canada's daily estimate, and like the UK information from the BBC above, are not what I think of when I think of a pandemic. The flu does kill significant numbers of people every year. In New Brunswick where I live we have been exposed to the Swine Flu already. A number of cadets visiting nearby Base Gagetown this summer contracted Swine Flu. They all survived. And New Brunswick has not, to date, recorded a single death, (yes, thankfully), but this humble, ignorant, non medical person has a hard time seeing the information to date as justifying the panic, the billions of dollars spent around the planet on vaccines, and their rush into production, with possible compromises to the safety and efficacy of the vaccines.

But what do I know. I am just a humble parent. And they are intelligent, well informed public health authorities who know better. If the WHO, the CDC and the Public Health Agency of Canada say there is a Swine Flu pandemic then I guess there must be a Swine Flu pandemic.

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Is Swine Flu Panic Petering Out at the CDC?

The CDC is starting to sound as though it is not sure that the swine flu (H1N1) pandemic will actually occur. It is now talking about the swine flu being like any other flu, serious stuff which can and does kill people each year, but no more than normal. As reported by the AP:

WASHINGTON — Government health officials are urging people not to panic over estimates of 90,000 people dying from swine flu this fall.

"Everything we've seen in the U.S. and everything we've seen around the world suggests we won't see that kind of number if the virus doesn't change," Dr. Thomas Frieden, head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a C-SPAN interview taped Wednesday.

While the swine flu seems quite easy to catch, it so far hasn't been more deadly than the flu strains seen every fall and winter — many people have only mild illness. And close genetic tracking of the new virus as it circled the globe over the last five months so far has shown no sign that it's mutating to become more virulent.

.......

What is likely: A busy flu season that starts earlier than usual.."

Governments have invested billions of dollars and lifetimes of credibility promoting the speculation that the world would be hit by a pandemic. In the US swine flu vaccine manufacturers have been given immunity from suit. It now remains to be seen whether pregnant women will be given vaccines with thimerosal and adjuvants. It remains to be seen whether the vaccine program will be rolled out in full force in most countries. It remains to be seen whether a possible autism baby boom will be created by a panic driven vaccination program.

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Swine Flu: Pandemic or Panic? Will We See An Autism Baby Boom?

Influenza kills people every year. To date the numbers of deaths from the Swine Flu, H1N1, virus have not been reported as being exceptionally outside the norm. The fear, as I understood official reports, was that a second wave of Swine Flu was coming, one in which the virus will have mutated and become far more deadly. So far at least, according to a new realease from the CDC that hasn't happened, the Swine Flu virus has not mutated as it makes its way through the southern hemisphere.

As reported in USA Today:

"The H1N1 flu strain doesn't appear to be mutating as it makes its way through the Southern Hemisphere, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today in a briefing.

One of the biggest fears has been that the virus, which first appeared in April in the U.S. and Mexico and which people don't have any built-up immunity to, might mutate into an even more dangerous form. Health officials have been keeping a close watch on the Southern Hemisphere, which is in its winter season now, to see what form of the virus is likely to travel north as fall comes to the U.S. and the rest of the Northern Hemisphere.

Flu viruses are unpredictable, so the fact that this one hasn't mutated is "somewhat reassuring" said Jay Butler, director of CDC's H1N1 Vaccine Task Force."

The failure of the Swine Flu to mutate .. to date .. will not stop the roll out of the massive Swine Flu vaccine buys by most western nations. The health authorities have invested much of their credibility in predicting a swine flu pandemic which does not yet appear to have materialized. Massive amounts of public monies have been invested. The vaccines will be given.

With young children and pregnant women near the top of the priority list for receipt of swine flu vaccines, and with the vaccines still containing thimerosal and adjuvants we will experience an unplanned observational study of whether vaccines are causally related to autism. The IACC pulled an observational study of vaccinated and unvaccinated populations off the table in January and IACC head Dr. Thomas Insel spent much of his credibility in opposing the need or the ethics of such a study. Despite the comments of medical and health professionals like Dr. Bernadine Healy, Dr. Julie Gerberding and Neurologist, professor and successful parental autism vaccine litigant Dr. Jon Poling, and despite the direct observations and cries of thousands of parents the IACC will NOT do a study which might confirm a vaccine autism connection. The Swine Flu vaccination program targeting young children and pregnant women might in fact save many lives as the health authorities continue to maintain. The same program might, unfortunately, provide evidence of a vaccine autism connection.

If another upswing in autism diagnoses occurs in 2011-13 remember the Swine Flu Vaccine program of 2009-10.

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Facing Autism in New Brunswick (and Conor) 3 Years Later

Conor, October 2007

Conor, August 2009 (2 days ago)

In a few days it will be three full years since I began this autism blog. Things have changed in 3 years and things have remained the same. I have changed ... some. And Conor has changed ... a lot. The autism world for the most part has not changed at all with the same arguments being recycled over and over. The good news ... or bad ... if you are a faithful member of the Autism Hub ... is that I enjoy blogging and plan to continue.

I have written previously of my motivation for starting this blog and will not do so again other than to say that I wanted to express my views about autism a subject of utmost importance to me because my buddy, my son Conor, has Autism Disorder. Today and each day I pledge to continue to fight for a better life for him no matter what obstacles are placed in my path and no matter who places those obstacles there.

I do not accept the descriptions of autism offered up on major media publications like CBC and CNN which tend to ignore the harsher life challenges faced by the more severely affected. The CBC, in particular, caters to the views of Michelle Dawson and some other High Functioning Autistic Persons and persons with Aspergers Disorder who do not want to be cured of their autism and therefore feel that no person with autism disorder could really want to be cured. I reject wholeheartedly such attempts to impose their personal feelings on my son.

Three years ago my immediate interest was the impending election in New Brunswick. For parents of children with autism the Liberal Party of then opposition leader Shawn Graham offered a real choice. In the election campaign Mr. Graham made very specific promises:

1. Integrate services for young children and their families by enhancing and expanding the Early Childhood Initiatives Program to ensure a smooth transition into public school for children identified as at risk or those with special needs, such as autism.

2. Provide UNB-CEL autism training for 100 additional teaching assistants and Methods and Resource teachers each year for four years.

There was some fierce resistance from the education bureaucracy because the commitments arose out of consultations with stakeholders and civil servants could not claim career ownership of the commitments. The CUPE local union representing Teacher Asistants has also opposed the commitment because not all of their members could pass the entrance and graduation requirements for the UNB-CEL Autism Intervention Training program. But, Premier Graham has been honoring those commitments, together with former Education Minister Kelly Lamrock, in the three years since that promise was made.

Federally not much has happened to help autistic children in Canada over the past 3 years. Our Fredericton MP together with Nova Scotia MP Peter Stoffer was able to get a motion passed which essentially recognized the need for a National Autism Strategy for Canada but it did not do much more than that. The much more concrete private members bill from PEI MP Shawn Murphy was defeated by a coalition of the Harper Conservatives and the Bloc Quebecois. It is clear that as long as Stephen Harper, who has never been a big fan of Canada's public health care system, remains Prime Minister there will be no REAL National Autism Strategy which addresses the funding requirements of the provinces struggling to provide autism services across Canada. Only the parties responsible for our national medicare system, the Liberals and NDP, will consider a REAL National Autism Strategy and parents of autistic children would be well advised to elect either one or both to govern if they hope to see a REAL National Autism Strategy put in place to ensure interventions, education and residential care for all of Canada's autisic children and adults in need.

Canada has some very prominent autism researchers but they tend to be old guard researchers like Eric Fombonne and Laurent Mottron; interested in pursuing their pet theories about the nature of autism but doing little to actually advance our knowledge of causes and cures for autism. (In fact Mottron has stated that the notion of curing autism is nonsense). The United States, which has led the way in providing credible, evidence based assessments of autism interventions, also leads in seeking to find causes and cures for autism (Once again, this Canadian autism Dad says God Bless America).

The "it's gotta be genetic" paradigm that Teresa Binstock described in 1999 as the basis for funding decisions for autism research still dominates the studies that are being done and the discussion of autism issues but it is beginning to change with an emerging consensus that autism disorders result from an interaction of genetic, environmental and biological factors. As the authors of the recent California study pointed out though autism research funding still grossly favors genetic over environmental autism research. But at least it is starting to dawn on some at the IACC that they have to start looking at environmental factors.

On the controversial issues of vaccines and autism I have changed my mind. While I once accepted without questioning the public health authorities position that there is no vaccine autism connection I am no longer so sure. I have read the comments of people like Dr. Bernadine Healy and Dr. Jon Poling and I am no longer convinced that the science is closed on these issues. As the public health authorities commence a campaign to provide as yet untested Swine Flu vaccines to pregnant women and young children, vaccines containing both thimerosal AND adjuvants that enhance the effects of the thimerosal, I am very mindful of Dr. Healy's caution that the mercury based thimerosal crosses the placenta. I can't help but wonder whether the 2009 Swine Flu panic will give rise to an Autism Baby Boom, yet another dramatic increase in autism diagnoses, in the year 2011 and subsequent.

I have enjoyed, for the most part, the people that I have met over the internet by blogging. I am not the easiest person in the world to agree with on a good day and with autism there is always room for intense disagreement on most issues. But I have come to "know" many people that I believe I like even though I disagree with them on many issues. Of course there are others who do not fall into that category but I will say nothing about them.

For me personally the biggest change in the last 3 years has been with my buddy Conor. He has grown like a weed, now standing 5' 11" and counting, at the age of 13. Every day living with Conor brings challenges. His severe Autistic Disorder is no picnic in the park. But every day without exception has also been a tremendous joy.

Where I part company from those autism parent bloggers who espouse the joy of autism philosophy is that while I love my son dearly, and enjoy my time with him each day, I refuse to sweep the negative realities of his Autistic Disorder under the carpet. I refuse to praise what is at bottom a neurological disorder that restricts his life opportunities. I refuse to do my son that disservice. I love him far too much to do that.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to read this blog from time to time even those who disagree with me. I intend to keep on blogging and I hope you visit again.

Conor's Dad

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