The World Health Organization (WHO) is trying to defend its handling of last year’s H1N1 swine flu pandemic. As BBC News so aptly puts it:
When a pandemic was declared last June most European countries changed their health priorities to accommodate thousands of expected patients, including spending millions of euros on vaccines for H1N1. . . .But it has since become clear that although 14,000 people worldwide died from swine flu, and millions more were infected, it is a mild flu with a lower mortality than seasonal influenza.
Of course, any of us who were paying attention have known this from the beginning. The H1N1 hysteria never made any sense to a level-headed observer. Now, as the BBC reports, the Council of Europe has raised questions about whether the WHO’s irrational actions relating to H1N1 had something to do with their links to the drug companies that got massive contracts to produce vaccines. Fascinating.
Of course, if the WHO is corrupt, that still doesn’t explain why the governments of the world—including our own under President Barack Obama (D) and his administration—went along with the charade without any independent review. I like to think that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) don’t go nuts over every breathless decree from the WHO without double-checking first, but maybe I’m being naive.