She's at it again! (Margaret Chen blowing smoke about the next pandemic) / CBS

Beginning in April, 2009 we heard from the talking health heads, especially WHO Director General Margaret Chen's, about the world-threatening pandemic swine flu.  Her pronouncements sold a lot of Tamiflu and vaccines.  (Probably at least 5-10 Billion dollars' worth worldwide; anyway, the price tag was so high we never got a straight answer from the USG about how much it spent.)  Most of it (both the money and the majority of the vaccine produced) went down the toilet.

No, sorry, I'm wrong:  the Pandemrix vaccines and all US swine flu vaccines shipped in multidose vials contained mercury and therefore had to be treated as hazardous waste.  This required spending significant additional money to get rid of them.  It would have been so much simpler to just put all those vaccine doses into arms.

Recall that it was WHO/ Chen's declaration of a pandemic that triggered a "BUY" for the vaccines, based on preexisting contracts between vaccine manufacturers and national governments.

Well, now it may be time to get ready for the next pandemic pie-in-the-sky roller-coaster:  We scare you, we charge you, we inject you.  Do you feel safer now?

From CBS:

GENEVA (CBS Atlanta/AP) — The World Health Organization warns that the deadly SARS-like virus first seen in the Middle East is a global threat.

Dr. Margaret Chan, WHO’s director-general, said in a speech in Geneva Monday that the new respiratory coronavirus MERS “is a threat to the entire world.”

“Looking at the overall global situation, my greatest concern right now is the novel coronavirus. We understand too little about this virus when viewed against the magnitude of its potential threat. Any new disease that is emerging faster than our understanding is never under control,” Chan said during the 66th World Health Assembly.

Yet 8 months since it was discovered, only 44 people are known to have been affected, and only 24 have died.  Does that sound like Armageddon--no, wrong again--Pharmageddon to you?