Suzi Wizowaty

Flu season is approaching, and we’re being barraged almost daily with news reports about the swine flu. Interesting fact: on a recent visit to Vermont, David H. Newman, an emergency room physician at St. Luke’s in NYC who also teaches at Columbia, reported that while about 500 people have died of the swine flu so far in the U.S., 50,000 people die of the “regular” flu every year.

So why all the hype, and more significantly, who stands to benefit?

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, and as I read about pandemics and about the pharmaceutical industry, I’ve begun to wonder whether we’re asking the right questions. Such as:

What are the actual public health risks? Addressing a group of legislators in August, Dr. Newman reported that although his E.R. normally sees about 300 people a day, last fall during the height of public concern about swine flu, 600 people a day turned up. And what happened? According to Dr. Newman, people died. But not from swine flu. They died from acute illnesses for which they couldn’t get attention because so many frightened people not acutely ill tied up the system.

Does this mean it’s not serious? Not necessarily. Depends on the “it.” What some scientists fear is not actually the H1N1 virus but what it might mutate into, which is a complete unknown. And therefore cannot be vaccinated against.

But then what about the vaccines that are supposed to guard against this flu, H1N1? Are they worth taking? Are they safe? Do the benefits outweigh the risks?

It depends on whom you ask, but here are some facts: The current vaccines being proposed have been studied very little. This is a cause for concern among many scientists. Why? Why not just take the drug companies’ word for their effectiveness and safety? Perhaps caution is advised here because the history of the pharmaceutical industry includes many well-documented examples of drugs being rushed onto the market which later have to be withdrawn because of injurious side effects, even death. Often these side effects were known to company executives but downplayed.

For example, at least two of the current vaccines (made by Novartis and Glaxo) contain a substance called squalene, about which there is no research at all, according to Dr. Tom Jefferson of the Cochrane Collaboration, an independent organization of international, volunteer scientists who review the studies of drug companies for legitimacy. The FDA has not approved a single drug containing squalene, which has been linked to Gulf War syndrome. (It was in the anthrax vaccine, and it has since been banned from use by the Pentagon. For information see http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_18900.cfm .)

Can we look at other flu vaccines for guidance? Some people swear by them, and some people avoid them. Doctors recommend them, especially for high-risk groups. According to Columbia’s Dr. Newman, there is no real scientific evidence that flu vaccines of any kind save lives. I’m obviously not advocating for avoiding flu shots, but it’s worth asking, “What are the risks and benefits?”

What about the new vaccines? Could they be dangerous? Tamiflu, Relenza, and an experimental drug called peramvir are being discussed as possible additions to the swine flu vaccination. (As a result, the stock price of BioCryst, the maker of peramvir, just went up 25 percent, according to Reuters news service recently.) In studies of Tamiflu, 50% of children experienced side effects, some serious. Studies of Relenza proved its ineffectiveness so conclusively that a panel of experts convened by the FDA voted 13 to 4 against approving it. But such is the power of the industry that when Glaxo (the maker) objected strongly, higher ups at the FDA caved. The impartial scientists were overridden. Glaxo’s own studies show it barely works; independent studies suggest it doesn’t work at all. But in 1999 Relenza was granted FDA approval. [See Our Daily Meds by Melody Petersen.]

So, who benefits from all this hype?

I don’t know whether the threat of a pandemic is real or not. I know I can’t trust companies that stand to make billions of dollars by selling untested products that may come with dangerous side-effects or even have been proven not to work any better than old-fashioned hand-washing. I know I don’t want the U.S. government pressured into approving untested drugs. And I know that I’d feel a lot better about this whole thing if our system had more transparency. Fear is a powerful social tool, and media campaigns to sell drugs—Lipitor, Ritalin, Viagra, Vioxx—have a strong track record. I hope that a campaign to induce anxiety and urge mass inoculation will not drown out reasonable caution and common sense.