Pigs aren’t really designed by nature for flying, are they? Yet some people seem implacably and resolutely determined that somehow they should.

According to an article in today’s Pulse magazine, top GPs are accusing the government and Department of Health of scaremongering over swine flu. Too right.

The article states:

“Dr Sam Everington, a GP in Tower Hamlets, who has acted as a leading adviser to Lord Darzi on primary care and was formerly deputy chair of the BMA, said scaremongering by the Department of Health had seen the nation gripped with fear, leading to ‘utter chaos’ for practices in areas with the most number of cases.

“He said: ‘All this is being ratcheted up by the CMO and the Government. They are actively scaremongering everybody.’

“‘We have no evidence that this is in any way worse than winter flu, yet the approach has been taking clinicians away from more serious problems with patients and causing great fear among the public.’

“Dr Everington, whose practice has been among those in the front line, with London one of the worst hit areas, added: ‘We as GPs are used to measuring risk but there’s nothing of that sort going on in the Department of Health.’

“Of Sir Liam Donaldson he said: ‘It’s almost like he’s been preparing for this pandemic flu for so long he wants it to be fulfilled.'”

Meanwhile, according to another article in the same publication

“Health Secretary Andy Burnham told the House of Commons yesterday that the UK had abandoned its previous attempts to contain the swine flu outbreak, and moved to a new ‘treatment phase’ in the face of a spiralling number of cases.

“Under the new procedures, GPs should diagnose swine flu cases by phone, and patients will then arrange for a ‘flu friend’ to collect a voucher for Tamiflu from GP practices.”

Tamiflu vouchers, eh? Well, well, well. Now isn’t this all going exactly to plan? Just don’t, whatever you do, see through the smokescreen …

“It is becoming ever more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer but man himself who is man’s greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes.”
Carl Gustav Jung

Haven’t we been here before?

And I’m not talking about 1918, but the avian flu scare that took flight at the end of 2005. About the only upshot worthy of note from that little global panic attack was the fat profits made by Roche Pharmaceuticals in the wake of their highly successful Tamiflu® marketing campaign that saw governments stockpiling the stuff with the idea of dosing every member of their populations. But since the goose that laid the golden egg has now well and truly flown the coop on that one, I guess it’s time for the viral marketing specialists to jump species and give it another go. After all, it’s a well tried and successful formula and we seem to fall for it every time.

A few journalists, like Simon Jenkins in The Guardian and Deborah Orr in The Independent, have tried injecting a strong dose of at least some reason into the general hysteria, but to little avail. This morning the postman dropped an NHS leaflet entitled “Important Information About Swine Flu” on my doorstep. (You can download a copy here if you don’t already have it.) This “public information” campaign is really scraping the trough when it comes to trying to spin a convincing yarn (as well as aiming itself at a reading and comprehension age somewhere around the 7-10 year-old mark). Take these extracts for instance

“Because it’s a new virus, no one will have immunity to it and everyone could be at risk of catching it.”

Err, well, um … That’s actually true of the vast majority of flu outbreaks. Viruses mutate. That’s part of their job desciption. This year’s flu isn’t the same as last year’s flu or the year before or the year before that, (which is one of the principle reasons why vaccinating people against last year’s flu with the aim of protecting them against this year’s is so nonsensical, at least if you’re coming from the perspective of disease prevention and prophylaxis).

“Pandemic flu is different from ordinary flu because it’s a new virus that appears in humans and spreads very quickly from person to person worldwide.”

That’s not actually the definition of a pandemic. The principal criterion for a pandemic is the number of people affected (the word comes from the Greek ‘pan’ = all and ‘demos’ = people). This is necessarily far in excess of an epidemic, which itself is a widespread and prevalent occurence of a particular disease that quickly and severely affects a large number of people. Swine flu isn’t even coming close to approaching an epidemic yet.

To put this in even clearer perspective, since January, around 13,000 people in the US alone will have died of complications from “ordinary” flu, It’s estimated that “ordinary” flu kills between 250,000 and 500,000 worldwide annually.

Modern medicine also seems to continually forget this, but the difference between “ordinary” flu and flu that becomes a pandemic is as much to do with the people it infects as it is anything to do with the virus itself. In 1918, the world had just been through 4 years of the first World War. War is an intense and devastating trauma that substantially lowers the immunity of entire populations affected by it. We’re not in that space right now. Though give the global recession a few more years and who knows …?

There were also doctors at the time who noticed correlations that made them suspect a decidedly more man-made aetiology.

In the last swine flu panic in 1976 we were told that thousands might die and to prevent that 40 million US citizens were vaccinated. Thousands developed permanent paralytic nervous problems and dozens died from the vaccine. Only one person actually died from the flu, and it never moved outside the Fort Dix area in New Jersey where it was first identified.

Of course the stockpile of Tamiflu® (oseltamivir) purchased back in 2005-06 will be coming to the end of its shelf life soon. If there were reason enough to get governments to distribute it all to their populations (though not before demand is stoked to fever pitch by empty pharmacies – pharmacies emptied by people who’ve paid $100 a prescription for a course of the drug), then the storehouses will be bare again and ripe for refilling. What’s more, if the flu isn’t actually that bad to begin with, then the “success” at preventing worldwide population devastation can all be attributed to the drug! Bingo! What better way of ensuring continuing healthy profits during a global recession? Or of boosting the reputation of a drug which, at best, seems to shorten the duration of the flu by a mere 24 hours, and at worst will have you vomiting, coming out in skin reactions, suffering cramping pains, headaches, deafness and insomnia, and even commiting suicide? (And let’s keep quiet about the fact that the CDC have detected widespread oseltamivir resistance in nearly all of the influenza A (H1N1) viruses tested so far during the 2008–09 season.) Jings, this is all so easy! We could all be pigs at the trough chowing down on fat salaries as pharmaceutical industry strategists!

Cynical? Moi?

HEALTH WARNING: If you intend taking Tamiflu, and especially if you’re considering giving it to your children, PLEASE read this site first.