Dutch health minister calls for investigation of H1N1 response
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The Dutch government’s handling of the H1N1 vaccination campaign is coming under heavy scrutiny, according to Radio Netherlands.
Health Minister Ab Klink has asked an independent body to investigate whether the government’s response was appropriate.
The investigation will examine whether Klink's decision to buy enough vaccines to inoculate all 16.5 million citizens twice was necessary. The H1N1 pandemic was less severe than expected, and less harmful than a typical seasonal flu outbreak, according to health officials. By the end of the campaign, only the elderly, people with chronic illnesses and children under five had received vaccinations.
While acknowledging that the government responded with the best information available given the early detection of the virus, Jim van Steenbergen, head of the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, has suggested the response to the H1N1 flu (called the Mexican flu in the Netherlands) may have been over the top.
NIVEL, the Netherlands institute for health research, declared the H1N1 epidemic over in the Netherlands on Christmas Eve. The outbreak lasted ten weeks, the average length of a seasonal flu epidemic.
About 50 people died from H1N1 in the Netherlands and the World Health Organization reports 5,000 deaths worldwide.
The study is to be completed at the end of this year.
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When autism was first described as a disease in the 1940s, the standard medical theory, first promulgated by an "expert" with a degree in philosophy was that the child's disease was the result of "refrigerator mothers".
Leaving aside questions of vaccine efficacy or swine flu virulence, now we have people questioning the wisdom of taking a vaccine that often contains a preservative already banned in much of the world for documented neurotoxicty. A mercury based preservative that is entirely unnecessary for safe and efficacious vaccination. One that was to be banned from all pediatric vaccines in the US until the previous president vetoed that bill.
Once again the experts are out in force ridiculing those who are concerned for their health and/or the safety of their children. Well, I am skeptical of such experts.
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