Swine Flu

This article is part of the Pharma_Portal project of Spinwatch.

Swine flu is a respiratory disease caused by a strain of the influenza type A virus known as H1N1 - the same strain which causes seasonal outbreaks of flu. A version of the strain emerged in Mexico in 2009, which became the first flu pandemic for forty years. Tamiflu and Relenza are used to treat swine flu.

Vaccination

As the outbreak reached pandemic proportions, drug companies began developing a vaccine for swine flu. Baxter International Inc. announced its vaccine would be available by July 2009 - just three months after the outbreak. GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi-Aventis and Solvay SA (SOLB.BT) also started producing vaccines.

The first doses of GlaxoSmithKline's (GSK) vaccine were on track to be shipped by September 2009. The UK initially ordered 60 million doses of the vaccine, while the U.S. paid GSK '$250 million to supply it with "pandemic products" such as the individual ingredients used in the vaccine.' The drug company negotiated contracts with sixteen countries to start with and was in discussions with fifty more.

Note that "pandemic" is a word that refers to the wide spread of the virus. It does not say anything about the severity of the infection. In July 2009, even as vaccines were being rolled out for the entire population of the UK, the World Health Organization stated:

We are still seeing a largely reassuring clinical picture. The overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a full recovery within a week, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment... Most cases of severe and fatal infection continue to occur in people with underlying medical conditions.

Legal immunity for vaccine makers

In July 2009 the UK government's Department of Health said it would indemnify manufacturers if there were any serious side-effects from the vaccine, according to a report in the Sunday Times. This is a significant development in the light of the serious side-effects experienced from the swine flu vaccine implemented in the US after the 1976 outbreak (see "1976 outbreak").

A parallel move occurred in the United States, also in July 2009. A report on Google News stated:

Vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, government health officials said ...

Since the 1980s, the government has protected vaccine makers against lawsuits over the use of childhood vaccines. Instead, a federal court handles claims and decides who will be paid from a special fund.

The document signed by Sebelius last month grants immunity to those making a swine flu vaccine, under the provisions of a 2006 law for public health emergencies. It allows for a compensation fund, if needed.

1976 outbreak

A previous outbreak of swine flu occurred in the USA in 1976. In 1979, CBS television's 60 Minutes did a major expose of the swine flu vaccination programme of 1976. The expose revealed that:

• the swine flu vaccination programme was rolled out nationwide after a single soldier died following an episode in which he dragged himself out of his sick bed against medical advice to do a 5-mile march; he was later found to have the swine flu virus in his body
• 46 million Americans had the swine flu vaccination
• 4,000 people claimed damages totaling $3.5 billion from the US government for harm allegedly suffered from the vaccine
• Two-thirds of these 4,000 cases concerned neurological damage or death after the vaccine. The cases of neurological damage included Guillain-Barré syndrome such as that suffered by an interviewee on the CBS TV programme.
• The vaccine that was given to the public had not been tested. The approval for the public vaccination programme had been given on the basis of trials done on a previous strain of the vaccine. These trials had, however, revealed neurological side-effects. One of the researchers told the head of the Center for Disease Control, David Sencer, of his concerns about these but the programme went ahead anyway.

Baxter releases live bird flu virus

Governments lined up for Baxter's swine flu virus in the summer of 2009 spite of the fact that shortly before, the company was responsible for releasing a contaminated product containing live bird (avian) flu virus from its plant in in Orth-Donau, Austria. A report in the Toronto Star stated:

The contaminated product, a mix of H3N2 seasonal flu viruses and unlabelled H5N1 viruses, was supplied to an Austrian research company. The Austrian firm, Avir Green Hills Biotechnology, then sent portions of it to sub-contractors in the Czech Republic, Slovenia and Germany.

The contamination incident, which is being investigated by the four European countries, came to light when the subcontractor in the Czech Republic inoculated ferrets with the product and they died. Ferrets shouldn’t die from exposure to human H3N2 flu viruses. ...

People familiar with biosecurity rules are dismayed by evidence that human H3N2 and avian H5N1 viruses somehow co-mingled in the Orth-Donau facility. That is a dangerous practice that should not be allowed to happen, a number of experts insisted.

Resources

• The Flawed 1976 National “Swine Flu” Influenza Immunization Program, Biot Report #177: February 22, 2005, accessed 16 July 2009