By Daan de Wit

Listen to the interview with Paul Flynn MP, by Daan de Wit for DeepJournal, 1 July 2011.

Paul Flynn led the inquiry of the Council of Europe into the swine flu. It published a report in June of 2010 [read the report, see an interview with Flynn by the BBC]. The report was very critical of the role of the farmaceutical industry and of the way the flu was handled by the WHO and the governments. The complete story of the Swine Flu I wrote down in my book (in Dutch) Dossier Mexicaanse griep.

After the criticisms the WHO experienced about its handling of the flu crisis, it announced a review. That resulted in a report that was published in May 2011 by an independent WHO commission. Read the limited and unlimited version of the report.

In the interview with DeepJournal Flynn reviews the handling by the WHO of the Swine Flu - 'a terrible error' - and reviews the WHO report: 'A disgrace'. Flynn is dissapointed by the conclusions of the report, basically claiming that the WHO made no mistakes in handling the H1N1 pandemic. 'The public interest has lost in the World Health Organization report and the influence of commercial interest triumphed again. [...] We are still in the position where decisions can be influenced for the wrong reasons. We need a body, a World Health Organization, that has our full confidence that it is not influenced by commercial bodies, but is influenced only by their prime concern, which should be the health of the people of Europe.'

Flynn refers in the interview to a recent report by the European Parliament's Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI) on the management of the outbreak of H1N1 infuenza in 2009-2010. The PharmaTimes headlines: 'EU slammed over “disproportionate” swine flu response'.

In the Netherlands the WHO report led to Elsevier magazine writing an article with the headline: 'Experts vrijgesproken'. Het artikel spreekt expliciet viroloog Ab Osterhaus vrij, ondanks dat hij in het WHO-rapport [PDF] niet wordt genoemd.

Flynn was de leider van een groot onderzoek van de Europese Commissie naar de Mexicaanse griep. In het gesprek dat ik met hem had geeft hij commentaar op het onderzoek dat de WHO recent heeft laten doen naar eigen handelen. De onderzoekers concludeerden: niets aan de hand. 'Schandalig', zegt Flynn.