After the Avian Flu left us completely underwhelmed as a right royal pandemic, attacking only a few in the western world, we needed another real flu. Cue the swine flu. In Australia 191 people died of swine flu, which, with apologies to the 191 who did die, is no pandemic. A normal flu season sees about 2000 - 3000 deaths. The doom merchants forecast a 1% mortality rate based on the avian flu; we ended up with 0.01%, not flash forecasting.
The health experts talked the swine flu up, scared the population and instead of increasing sales of Bundaberg rum (served in black tea with honey and lemon juice), we had people running off to hospital and their GPs. Good if you had shares in CSL or Roche, but not so good for the Diago (overseas owners of Bundy Rum). The government overreacted buying $100M (enough for 21 million people) of vaccine from CSL, which eventually cost us taxpayers $140M. Unfortunately, like old yoghurt, the 9.5 million vaccines left go off and so will be over the use by date by the end of the year. Maybe we can get Coles and Woolies to discount the vaccines along with fresh pasta and orange juice...
One would have to think $140M could have done some serious good in preventative medicine in Australia, possibly funded some decent research into flu pandemics.
There is also a bit of a smell about the WHO and the declaration of pandemic. People on the committee were on Roche's payroll. Roche is also the maker of Tamiflu flu vaccine. 2+2=? The WHO is the organisation that declares when a global sniffle becomes a pandemic. By declaring a pandemic, the WHO triggers governments to rush out and buy vaccines. If the WHO drops the bar as to what is a pandemic, drug companies are unlikely to complain.
This a typical case of the precautionary principle run amok. The response in the face of uncertainty was to rush out and buy up vaccines, in a typical strong precautionary principle reaction. The blinkered view was not to take a holistic view of cost and medically effective flu preventatives, but to buy up vaccines. Maybe a more effective use of the $140M would be to buy back Bundy from its overseas owners and give all Australians a small toddy to help them get a good night's sleep.
One would have to think $140M could have done some serious good in preventative medicine in Australia, possibly funded some decent research into flu pandemics.
There is also a bit of a smell about the WHO and the declaration of pandemic. People on the committee were on Roche's payroll. Roche is also the maker of Tamiflu flu vaccine. 2+2=? The WHO is the organisation that declares when a global sniffle becomes a pandemic. By declaring a pandemic, the WHO triggers governments to rush out and buy vaccines. If the WHO drops the bar as to what is a pandemic, drug companies are unlikely to complain.
This a typical case of the precautionary principle run amok. The response in the face of uncertainty was to rush out and buy up vaccines, in a typical strong precautionary principle reaction. The blinkered view was not to take a holistic view of cost and medically effective flu preventatives, but to buy up vaccines. Maybe a more effective use of the $140M would be to buy back Bundy from its overseas owners and give all Australians a small toddy to help them get a good night's sleep.
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