Poland's Swine Flu Choice

[Glassfan]

A story in Inside Europe suggests that Poland's decision during the world recession not to buy the h1n1 vaccine save it millions of Euros. Across Europe today millions of unused Swine Flu vaccine doses are sitting on shelves unused.

There's been ongoing controversy about how serious the h1n1 "pandemic" would become. The CDC and UN "Top Scientists" possibly exaggerating the gravity of the situation by comparing it to the 1919 outbreak which may have caused up to 20 million lives. Media may have contributed to the overreaction with it's preoccupation with worst case scenarios to sell commercial space.

Swine Flu stories have virtually disappeared from headline news, except for backlash stories like those above. This suggests the scare was indeed overwrought, and it will be more difficult for medical experts to cry "Wolf" next time.

Comments?

 

[cardgame]

Media may have contributed to the overreaction

may? may? MAY?

They were the chief source.

 

[Glassfan]

Sorry, I thought I understood how the links work. Here's one of the stories:


France’s government has been accused of over-reacting to the threat of Swine flu and of wasting tax payers’ money.

The criticism comes from the opposition as the government confirmed it was selling off excess doses of the vaccine.

Originally the Health Ministry bought 94 million vaccinations at a cost of over 800 million euros but so far only five million doses have been used.

And a single jab not a double one has turned out to be sufficient.

France’s Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot has fended off the criticism by revealing that countries are being sought to sell on the unused vaccines – 300,000 shots have already gone to Qatar.

France is not alone in finding itself with an embarrassment of the vaccine – Germany and the Netherlands are selling off their excess stocks while the UK and Italy are considering the situation.

Socialist MP Jean Marie Guen was highly critical of the French government.

“From the very beginning both scientists and politicians warned the government they were over dramatising the situation, over communicating and were buying too much vaccine,” he said.

On mainland France, Swine flu has killed an estimated 198 people but according to data released last month doctors now say new infections have fallen sharply in recent weeks.

Copyright © 2010 euronews

 

[Shaihulud]

It was overblown for sure. I was almost barred from travelling to the U.S last year because of it, and afterwards I had to be quarantined.

 

[Imrahil91]

Did all those governments also get so influenced by the media, because it were they who bought all the vaccines?

But I don't really know if they made the right choice. If we assume there was a real chance of the flu getting very serious, it probably was worth it. Perhaps they just want to be prepared for the worst even if the risk of it happening is low.

 

[Tee Kay]

France’s Health Minister Roselyne Bachelot has fended off the criticism by revealing that countries are being sought to sell on the unused vaccines – 300,000 shots have already gone to Qatar.

Does this mean the Qataris are even more stupid than the French? I mean, they don't even have pigs.

 

[History_Buff]

I can't really blame any government for over-reacting. In the period where we really didn't know what Swine Flu was going to be like, it's much better to overreact than to underreact.

Imagine, if Swine Flu had been everything the media made it out to be, people would be crying in their hospital beds that the government didn't buy/distribute enough vaccines. It's a game you can't win.

may? may? MAY?

They were the chief source.

They were the only source.

 

[Abaddon]

This is a surprise? Big Pharm is laughing its socks off.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

I guess Poland's poverty helped it in the long run. Good job.

 

[fugazi]

This is a surprise? Big Pharm is laughing its socks off.

QFT. Modern democracy at work.

 

[_random_]

It's good to hear there's some sensibility in Eastern Europe.

 

[aimeeandbeatles]

Perhaps the reson why nothing happened was because the vaccine was effective?

 

[innonimatu]

Perhaps the reson why nothing happened was because the vaccine was effective?

If France only managed to use 5 million does (and probably administering two does to the same person!), it means that the vast majority of its population was unvaccinated. And yet there was no real problem with the "swine flu" there - nothing abnormal compared with the usual flu.

No, those huge numbers of vaccines were known to be unnecessary by the time governments were buying it, one just had to look at the evolution of the swine flu during winter in the southern hemisphere. The whole thing was an engineered scare.

 

[Riffraff]

Always amusing how many people think they could judge cases like this simply on the resulting damage being quite minor.

 

[innonimatu]

Always amusing how many people think they could judge cases like this simply on the resulting damage being quite minor.

Risk in a situation where great uncertainty is present can only be assessed by comparison with past events. In this particular case any comparison with accurately historically recorded "fly pandemics" indicated that the probability of great damage was minor (the causes of the high 1918 flu mortality are disputed).

But in this particular case the failure to properly assess risk went far beyond that. Because there was direct evidence that the virus against which the vaccine was supposed to protect caused little damage, from all the countries in the southern hemisphere where "flu season" had already happened.

 

[Riffraff]

Risk in a situation where great uncertainty is present can only be assessed by comparison with past events. In this particular case any comparison with accurately historically recorded "fly pandemics" indicated that the probability of great damage was minor (the causes of the high 1918 flu mortality are disputed).

But in this particular case the failure to properly assess risk went far beyond that. Because there was direct evidence that the virus against which the vaccine was supposed to protect caused little damage, from all the countries in the southern hemisphere where "flu season" had already happened.

Historic precedent is certainly not without alternative here. Especially if one is using 1918 data for which critical parameters like the overall health/medical level and population movement are uncomparable. You might compare aswell compare it to the bubonic plauge.

Concering your second paragraph, I have it in my memory that in the first weeks some countries reported a mortality rate of something like 5%. Seeing that the flu actually did infect a great deal of people, caution was probably warranted.

 

[Babbler]

But in this particular case the failure to properly assess risk went far beyond that. Because there was direct evidence that the virus against which the vaccine was supposed to protect caused little damage, from all the countries in the southern hemisphere where "flu season" had already happened.

Really?

Intensive care units in New Zealand and Australia came close to turning seriously ill patients away during last year's swine flu pandemic, doctors say.

A year after the first cases of the virus were reported, researchers said it put 12 times the usual number of flu patients into intensive care in both countries last winter.

[snip]

Although the virus was a mild disease for most people, many with more serious symptoms needed critical care, Sydney-based intensive care specialist Ian Seppelt said.

"Most years, in that three-month period there are about 60 to 70 cases of viral pneumonitis in all [New Zealand and Australian] units."

Last year there were 856 cases - 119 in New Zealand - with 760 of those attributed to swine flu, he said.

[snip]

"If we had had any greater activity of that virus we would not have been able to offer that service [to everyone]."

Unlike normal flu seasons, it was predominantly younger people with no underlying symptoms who needed intensive care, Dr Seppelt said.

Wellington Hospital intensive care unit director Peter Hicks said he had "never seen anything like it before where we've had a disease that's so significantly impacted all the intensive care services across the two countries".

New Zealand hospitals had not had to turn people away from intensive care units but "it got close". (Kate Newton, The Dominion Post)

Some studies has shown that, by measuring the life-years lost, the 2009-10 pandemic was at least as bad as the 1968-69 pandemic, since the majority of H1N1 victims were young.