Did the WHO Exaggerate the H1N1 Flu Pandemic's Danger

By the summer of 2009, shortly after the H1N1 flu pandemic had first emerged, there was a waiting list for the first several million doses of the forthcomingew flu vaccine. At the head of the line,aturally, were the world's richestations. "Again we see the advantage of affluence," said Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), at aews conference on July 14. "Again we see access denied by an inability to pay." Describing H1N1 as "entirelyew and highly contagious," Chan scolded rich countries at the time for hoarding the "lion's share" of the global H1N1-vaccine supply. Six months later, Chan's admonitions seem prescient. Rich countries' hoards have become massive surpluses, and manyations areow trying frantically to cancel pending orders of vaccines or transfer them to poorerations. France, which had ordered enough of the vaccine to inoculate its entire population of 60 million, has so far used only 5 million doses andow wants to cancel 50 million doses and sell millions more. Similarly, theetherlands has a 19 million–dose order for sale to other countries, while Germany is in talks with drug manufacturers to halve its order of 50 million doses and sell off millions of others. Switzerland, Spain and Britain are also considering giving away or selling the millions of doses of the vaccine they have received or have on order. The U.S., which has so far distributed 160 million of the 251 million doses it purchased to doctors, hospitals and other health care providers across the country, has yet to make a decision on whether it will have an overflow and what it will do with any surplus. (Watch TIME's video "Chicken Eggs and Antigens: How the H1N1 Vaccine Is Made.") The excess in many countries occurred partly because health officials initially thought the vaccine would require two doses instead of one, and many countries signed contracts with manufacturers under that assumption; it turned out that a single dose was enough to build immunity. But the main reason for the surplus is simply that demand for the vaccine fell far short of what was originally expected.ow, after governments have spent billions of dollars on vaccines that wereoteeded - France alone spent $1.25 billion - some politicians and health professionals are looking to hold someone accountable. "WHO advised us falsely. They raised a false alarm," says Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg, who served in Germany's parliament until September, faulting the U.N.'s global health agency for relying on an inadequate definition of a pandemic. (See what youeed to know about the H1N1 vaccine.) Wodargotes that the agency declared the H1N1 pandemic based only on theew virus' transmissibility and didot take into consideration the severity of the strain. Wodarg blames the WHO for raising the alarm over a virus with little destructive potential, leading countries to embark on expensive mass-vaccination programs. He has organized a public parliamentary hearing on behalf of the Strasbourg-based human-rights group Council of Europe, titled "The Handling of the H1N1 Pandemic: More Transparencyeeded" The hearing, scheduled for Jan. 26, will explore the question of whether the WHO and governments overreacted to the threat of H1N1. KeijWe Fukuda, the WHO's special adviser on pandemic influenza, who will head a delegation to the Strasbourg hearing, counters that the WHO's definition of influenza pandemics has always been based on transmissibility and hasever had anything to do with the lethality of a virus; it waso different with H1N1. In response to accusations of overreaction to what has amounted to a mild disease, Fukuda says that once the 2009 H1N1 pandemic had been declared, "WHO consistently made it clear that it couldot predict the future course of the pandemic but consistently provided sober, balanced and scientifically supported information and guidance." (See howot to get H1N1 flu.) Fukuda says also that claims that H1N1 is a mild