Brittany's 1.1 blog. "Who to Blame?"

Who to blame?

Were you scared over last season’s swine flu outbreak? Did you and your friends get flu shots? Many people, all over the world in fact, were terrified and completely consumed with last year’s flu pandemic. Why? The World Health Organization issued alarming information about the 2009 outbreak and caused possible unnecessary fear regarding health risks. Where to place blame regarding the mishandlings of the H1N1 influenza pandemic has become controversial; the author of “A pandemic hindsight?” argues national governments led the responses to the flu pandemic, not the World Health Organization, while the Bureau of Investigative Journalism writes in their article, “WHO swine flu advisors had links to drug companies,” the World Health Organization has come under fire, and reasonably so, due to their connections with drug companies.

Nature’s editorial, “A pandemic of hindsight?” argues that Drug companies are inevitably partners with the World Health Organization through pandemic responses because they produce antivirals and vaccines. This author reasons that it would have been irresponsible for the World Health Organization not to consult the experts for decision making due to industrial competing interest. The author points out that the drug companies were strongly encouraging the World Health Organization to exaggerate the swine flu effect. Also, many people fail to realize that the World Health Organization was under extreme pressures seeing that millions of people could have died if the response was inadequate. Therefore, Nature’s editorial concludes that blame is not to be placed on the World Health Organization and instead, officials should use that energy to research so that pandemic responses will be better in the future.

In contrast, author of “WHO swine flu advisors had links to drug companies” believes that the World Health Organization is to blame because their deciding officials had financial links to the drug companies (specifically Roche and GlaxoSmithKline) which in return would profit from the organization’s decisions regarding the influenza responses. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism faults the World Health Organization because they did not declare their relations with the drug companies while knowing the strict rules on conflicts of interest. And as a result from their negligence, billions of dollars were spent on antivirals, which many still sit unused and shortly approaching expiration. This article argues that the World Health Organization is the one who actually declares the pandemic and they are the ones who the public turns to for information. So therefore, whether drug companies were encouraging them to exaggerate or not, it was ultimately their decision on how to respond and they failed.

The second article, from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, seems to be more convincing. It seems immature and unrealistic to blame the drug companies or national governments for what the World Health Organization reported themselves. However, both articles site other resources and give further links and information to back up their claims.

“A pandemic of hindsight?.” Nature (2010). Article: Nature. 24. June 2010. web. 9. September 2010.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v465/n7301/full/465985a.html

“WHO swine flu advisors had links to drug companies.” The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (2010). 7. June. 2010. web. 9. September 2010.

http://www.thermoscientific.com/wps/portal/ts/