It has seemed very interesting to me. The original here.
For Juan Gérvas, general practitioner, Team CESCA, MadridTo continue...
In Buitrago de Lozoya (Madrid) on January 19, 2010
www.equipocesca.org
The facts
The flu pandemic A (at first “porcine flu”) began in the spring 2009 in Mexico and at the end of April an alarm phase gave beginning with different attempts of containment of his diffusion. Without success, since in May there were already patients in the entire world, from the north hemisphere (the USA, Canada, Spain and the others) to the south hemisphere (Australia, New Zealand, Argentina and the others). In June it was already possible to determine the levity of the pandemic of flu A in the developed country like Australia, Canada and New Zealand so much with regard to mortality as morbidity (1,2). At the beginning of July the first projection of the mortality was published by flu A in Eurosurvillance (scientific magazine of the official European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) for scientists of New Zealand in which one was concluding that the mortality was minor for the pandemic than for the seasonal flu (2).
At the end of July and the first of August, in full southern winter, all the countries of the south hemisphere were coinciding with information of morbidity and mortality of the pandemic of flu A much underneath of the seasonal flu of every year. For it the signatory could publish and spread a text on August 10, with information and with the prognosis of low mortality and morbidity, asking for serenity and calmness. This text was published in newspaper El Pais on August 14. It had world echo so that it was translated for French, English, Italian, portuguese and Russian and set was published as such at the end of September by Healthy Skepticism. The last version in Castilian can be consulted on CESCA'S page, where also there is abundant information about the anti-flu vaccine.
On August 28 I prepared and spread a text in the shape of letter opened to the Minister and the Advisers of Health, to warn them publicly of the errors that they were committing. After one month the Minister gave acknowledgement of receipt. The text had echo in the whole Spain. The attitude of calmness and calmness the School Medical Organization joined from the middle of August. And at the beginning of September a group that became of 200 blogs and binnacles of the movement. The call to the calmness there joined also the Spanish Society of Public Health and Sanitary Administration and later the Spanish Association of Paediatrics and the Spanish Society of family Medicine.
The differences between the prognoses and the reality were abysmal in mortality; for example, in New Zealand of 18.000 dead persons foreseen against 17 deaths in the reality (3). In Spain, in May they went to August of incredible alarm, with big echo in the mass media and a politics of “transparence“ that in practice supposed the analysis and diffusion of information of life and death of every case for flu A. The differences also were abysmal in morbidity. For example, between 400 and 40.000 UCI income was calculated in Australia and New Zealand, with between 106 and 28.000 patients who would need mechanical respiration, which would exceed the possibilities of the sanitary system (4). In the reality there were respectively 722 and 456 easily manageable by the sanitary system (5). Again in Spain also a politics of “transparence“ was carried out with analysis I marry to case of the patients joined the UCI, with enormous alarm on a "piece of news" pneumonia.
The affectation of more young people and more pregnant women is only true in the proportional thing, since with the flu A the elders have less morbidity and mortality, for the defenders that they preserve opposite to this virus, which circulated until 1957. But in absolute numbers the mortality has been a minor that never. The vaccine against the seasonal flu was useless in the countries of the south hemisphere (the new virus A displaced almost completely to all the rest) and vaccine did not exist against the flu A, but neither it was necessary. The countries of the south hemisphere took low morbidity and mortality as the pandemic without vaccinating his population against the flu A. We knew that the vaccine against the seasonal flu has low effectiveness, that it is only useful in a third of the patients and that is completely useless in the children younger than two years (6,7).
Also we know that studies have never been done thoroughly either on the duration of the defenders that generate the vaccines against the flu, or on the advantages and long-term disadvantages. Also, we know that the virus of the flu A can provoke for itself immune answers that last more than 50 years (8). For all this it seemed reasonable not to vaccinate against the flu A (8,9). We knew that the antiviral ones had scarce or void efficacy in the prevention and the treatment of the seasonal flu and that they have serious adverse effects (10-13). The World Organization of the Health (WHO) persisted in his message of alarm, enclosed up to end of the year 2009. But his credit was void, after the most serious error with regard to the avian flu, in the year 2005, where it went so far as to predict up to 150 million dead persons, against a whole of 262 deceased persons in the whole world (14).
This alarm bore the preparation of plans of answer ("risk) extraordinarily aggressive and stopped to all the countries with the sensation that there would come sooner or later the pandemic of flu as a pest (15). The pandemic came, but of a capital levity, and was answered him by the plans of 2005, updated with the same way incredible numbers. Nevertheless the European population (and Spaniard) understood perfectly the situation and pushed back the vaccination and the suggested behavior of high alarm. Despite the low vaccination valuation against the flu A, the morbidity and mortality has been a minor than in an epidemic of seasonal flu.
We do not know the conditions of the contract with the industries for the vaccine against the flu A, but they must be so strange that the Minister of Health of Poland refused to his signature and to his buy for council of his legal advisers. In the last trimester of 2009 and in the beginning of 2010 information about the corruption has begun spreading concerning the answer of the WHO to the pandemic of flu A in scientific magazines (Science, British Medical Journal), the general press and even the European Council. There is accused the WHO and to his advisers of collusion of interests with the industries.
The reaction of the Minister and the Advisers of Health of Spain
The facts commented previously did not modify the plans of risk adopted in Spain at the beginning of the pandemic, in May, 2009 and until the end:
• sensitization campaigns were realized to the population,
• works were done in hospitals and health centers to change urgencies and UCI,
• there were modified forms of work and organization of the attention in the sanitary system,
• million dose were acquired of antiviral (and his use was promoted),
• there were bought million dose of vaccine against the flu A (and his administration was promoted),
• there were administered million dose of vaccine against the seasonal flu (which viruses were disappearing),
• respirators were bought,
• there were acquired masks, disposable suits and another material (that was distributed and whose use was promoted),
• type they gave norms to the companies in accordance with the plans avian flu
• the labor casualty of healthy pregnant women was promoted in schools and other places
• etc.
All this has redounded to an expense of hundreds of million euros, to a social situation of economic crisis, of unemployment of 20 % of the population and with a sanitary system that does not even cover the dental health. Worse, these political persons in charge support that they would do again what they have done. For all this I believe necessarily and promote to personal title the political and legal prosecution of the Minister and of the Advisers of Health of Spain for his probable responsibilities in public health and in the bad use of public wealths. Not even the mutation of the virus of the flu A or the presentation of more aggressive successive waves of the same one (improbable seen the history of the pandemics of flu from the Middle Age) (16) they would justify the plans and the actions tackled since all this would force to the establishment of other plans.
More info: The book The health that comes. New illnesses and the marketing of the fear (Peninsula, 2009) tells how there develop the campaigns of marketing of the fear as that of the flu A.
You index 1. Nelly THERE IS. To pandemic response to to disease of predomintly seasonal intensity. MJA. 2010; 192:81-3. 2. Wilson N, Baker MG. The emerging influenza pandemic: estimating the marry fatality rate. Eurosurvillance. 2009; 14 (26):pff=19255 3. Assessment of the 2009 influenza A (H1N1) pandemic on selected countries in the Southern hemisphere. Argentina, Australia, Chile, New Zealand, Uruguay. Department of Health and US Department White House National Security Service. August 26, 2009. 4. Anderson TA, Hart GK, Kainer MA; ANZICS Database Management Committee. Pandemic influenza-implications for critical care resources in Australia and New Zealand. J Crit Care 2003; 18: 173-180. 5. The ANZIC Influenza Investigators. Critical care services and 2009 H1N1 influenza in Autralia and New Zealand. N Engl J Med. 2009; 361:1925-34. 6. Simonsen L, Taylor RJ, Vibourd C et to. Mortality benefits of influenza vaccine in elderly people: an ongoing controversy. Lancet Infect Dis. 2007; 7:658-66. 7. Smith S, Demicheli V, I Gave Pietrantonj C, Harden AR et to. Vaccines for preventing influenza in healthy children. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2008; (2):CD004879. 8. Gérvas J, Wright J. Future of flu vaccines: Please, May we have to RTC now? BMJ; 2009; 339:b4651. 9. Collignon PJ. Mass vaccination against swine flu: could it cause reside harm than good? http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/339/sep03_2/b3471#219801 10. Antiviral in the flu: between the suspense and the urgency of the pandemic for the new virus A/H1N1. Bulletí GROC. 2009; 22 (2). 11. Burch J, Corbett M, Stock C et to. Prescription of anti-influenza drugs for healthy adults: to systematic review and goal - analysis. Lancet Infec Dis. 2009; doi:10.1016/S1473-3099 (09) 70199-9. 12. Shun-Shin M, Thompson M, Heneghan C et to. Neuraminidase inhibitors for treatment and prophylasis of influenza in children: systematic review and goal - analysis of randomized controlled trials. BMJ. 2009; 339; b3172. 13. Kitching A, Roche A, Balasegaran S et to. Oseltamivir adherence and side effects among children in three London schools affected by influenza A (H1N1), May, 2009. Internet An based cross sectional survey. Eurosurvillance 2009; 29:1-4. 14. Bonneux L, Damme WV. An iatrogenic pandemic of panic. BMJ. 2006; 332:786-8. 15. Aryans P. The ethics during the sanitary crises. Concerning the pandemic for the virus H1N1. Rev Public Esp Salud. 2009; 83:448-91. 16. Dark-haired person DM, Taubenberger JK. Understanding influenza backward. JAMA. 2009; 302:679-80.
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