They Blog For You

It’s difficult to admit that it is only the Daily Mail that takes the swine flu monstrous scandal seriously.

Tomorrow they will report my comments here yesterday and the links between the WHO experts who exaggerated the threat of this mild virus.

No other paper has reported that a third of the experts advising the World Health Organisation about the swine flu pandemic had ties to drugs firms.

Five of the 15 specialists who sat on the emergency committee had received funding from pharmaceutical giants, or was linked to them through their research.

The revelation will prompt speculation that the 'pandemic' was wildly overestimated and largely fuelled by the drugs industry who stood to benefit from the panic.

 Until yesterday the identities of the experts had been kept secret. But today it emerged that many of the scientists on the WHO's emergency panel had links with firms including GlaxoSmithKline, who made millions manufacturing swine flu vaccines.

It follows revelations by the Daily Mail earlier this year that more than half of the scientists advising the British Government's own taskforce on the pandemic had links to drugs giants.

One of the 15 scientists advising the WHO was British professor Neil Ferguson - who last year warned the pandemic would be so bad all schools would need to close. It has since emerged that Professor Ferguson had acted as a consultant for Roche, who makes Tamiflu, as well as GSK Biologicals until 2007.

Professor Maria Zambon, who was also on the panel, from UK Health Protection Agency's Centre for Infection, said she received funding from several vaccine makers, including Sanofi, Novartis, CSL, Baxter and GSK.

I do not draw any conclusions from these published links. There is an incestuous community of scientific experts on flu and they have many interests that are intertwined.

But the lesson on the need for future transparency must be heeded. Well done, Daily Mail.

 

 

  

 

Treasure Trove

Newport longest running excitement has been the revealing of new Roman treasures at Caerleon.  

 

The show never ends. The new excavations have exposed evidence a major new city complex outside of the known city of Isca walls.

 

The finds have astonished the archeologists who talk of a new area in which temples may be founded and hundreds of dwellings. In the past it was thought that they were no settlement ‘Ultra Vires’ of the already large settlement.
 

 

The new discoveries will add to the already magnificent remains of the Roman Amphitheatre, Baths and Barracks.

 

2010 will be Newport’s most significant year.