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'A Whole Industry Is Waiting For A Pandemic'

The world has been gripped with fears of swine flu in recent weeks. In an

interview with SPIEGEL, epidemiologist Tom Jefferson speaks about dangerous

fear-mongering, misguided, money-driven research and why we should all be

washing our hands a lot more often.

SPIEGEL: Mr. Jefferson, the world is living in fear of swine flu. And some

predict that, by next winter, one-third of the world's population might be

infected. Are you personally worried? Are you and your family taking any

precautions?

PHOTO GALLERY: THE WORLD RESPONDS TO THE SWINE FLU PANDEMIC

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Tom Jefferson: I wash my hands very often -- and it's not all because of swine

flu. That's probably the most effective precaution there is against all

respiratory viruses, and the majority of gastrointestinal viruses and germs as

well.

SPIEGEL: Do you consider the swine flu to be particularly worrisome?

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Jefferson : It's true that influenza viruses are unpredictable, so it does call

for a certain degree of caution. But one of the extraordinary features of this

influenza -- and the whole influenza saga -- is that there are some people who

make predictions year after year, and they get worse and worse. None of them so

far have come about, and these people are still there making these predictions.

For example, what happened with the bird flu, which was supposed to kill us all?

Nothing. But that doesn't stop these people from always making their

predictions. Sometimes you get the feeling that there is a whole industry almost

waiting for a pandemic to occur.

SPIEGEL: Who do you mean? The World Health Organization (WHO)?

Jefferson: The WHO and public health officials, virologists and the

pharmaceutical companies. They've built this machine around the impending

pandemic. And there's a lot of money involved, and influence, and careers, and

entire institutions! And all it took was one of these influenza viruses to

mutate to start the machine grinding.

SPIEGEL: On your Italian homepage, there is a " pandemic countdown " that expires

on April 1. Don't you think the situation calls for just a bit more seriousness?

ABOUT TOM JEFFERSON

Eligio PaoniTom Jefferson, 55, has worked for the Cochrane Collaboration for 15

years. Along with an international team of scientists, he evaluates all

published flu- related studies. Before assuming his current position, he was a

general practitioner in the British Army. He lives near Rome. Jefferson: I'm

just using it ironically to expose the false certainty that we are fed. Will

one-third of the world's population get swine flu? Nobody can say for sure right

now. For now, at least, I don't really see any fundamental difference, no

difference in the definition between this and a normal flu epidemic. Swine flu

could have even stayed unnoticed if it had been caused by some unknown virus

rather than an influenza virus.

SPIEGEL: Do you think the WHO declared a pandemic prematurely?

Jefferson: Don't you think there's something noteworthy about the fact that the

WHO has changed its definition of pandemic? The old definition was a new virus,

which went around quickly, for which you didn't have immunity, and which created

a high morbidity and mortality rate. Now the last two have been dropped, and

that's how swine flu has been categorized as a pandemic.

SPIEGEL: But, year after year, 10,000-30,000 people in Germany alone die from

influenza. In the Western world, influenza is the most deadly infectious disease

there is.

Jefferson: Hold on! These figures are nothing more than estimates. More than

anything, you have to distinguish between an influenza-like illness and a

genuine flu, the real influenza. Both of them have the same symptoms: a sudden

high fever, a sore throat, coughing, rheumatic pain in the back and legs,

possible bronchitis and pneumonia. But real flues, real influenzas are only

caused by influenza viruses, while there are more than 200 different viruses

that cause influenza-like illness. When it comes to figures related to so-called

flu deaths, you always get other causes of death caused by other viruses mixed

in. Now, in the case of elderly people who die of pneumonia, nobody would do a

postmortem to figure out if it was really an influenza virus that killed them.

Approximately 7 percent of influenza-like illness cases are caused by influenza

viruses. It's a very small percentage. What I know is that real influenza is

systematically overestimated.

SPIEGEL: And what about the 200 other kinds of viruses?

DER SPIEGEL

Flu-related deaths and causes of flu-like illnesses.

Jefferson: They're not as popular as influenza. Researchers are just not as

interested in that. Take rhinovirus, a horse-derived virus. It's the most

commonly isolated agent in common colds. There are a hundred different types of

these rhinoviruses. They usually only cause a normal runny nose, but they can be

deadly, too. Or so-called RSV, the human respiratory syncytial virus, that is

highly dangerous to infants and small children.

SPIEGEL: So why aren't researchers interested in it?

Jefferson: It's easy: They can't make money with it. With rhinoviruses, RSV and

the majority of the other viruses, it's hard to make a lot of money or a career

out of it. Against influenza, though, there are vaccines, and there are drugs

you can sell. And that's where the big money from the pharmaceuticals industry

is. It makes sure that research on influenza is published in the good journals.

And that's why you have more attention being paid there, and the entire research

field becomes interesting for ambitious scientists.

SPIEGEL: But is there any scientific reason to be interested in influenza

viruses?

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Jefferson: The strict focus on influenza is not only misguided; it's also

dangerous. Do you remember something called SARS? That was a truly dangerous

epidemic. It was like a meteor: It came and it went quickly, and it killed a lot

of people. SARS took us by surprise because it was caused by a completely

unknown coronavirus. Where did it come from? Where did it go? Or is it still

here? We still don't know. There are lots of other strange things like that

coming out. Every year, a new agent is identified. For example, there's

something called bocavirus, which can cause bronchitis and pneumonia in small

children. And there's something called metapneumovirus, which studies say is

responsible for more than 5 percent of all flu-related illnesses. So, we should

keep our eyes open in all directions!

SPIEGEL: But the great pandemic of 1918/1919 was caused by an influenza virus,

and it killed up to 50 million people around the world. Or do scientists contest

that?

Jefferson : It's very well possible that it was, but there are many aspects

about the 1918/1919 pandemic that still puzzle us. It was only 12 years ago that

we learned that the H1N1 virus caused it. But there was also a lot of bacterial

activity going on at the time. And it's particularly unclear why the mortality

rate for the flu dropped so dramatically after World War II. Today, you only get

a fraction of what was standard before the war. When it comes to the later

pandemics, such as the " Asian flu " of 1957 or the " Hong Kong flu " of 1968/69,

you can barely detect them as exceptional figures when it comes to death

statistics as a whole.

1 | 2 Next Part 1: 'A Whole Industry Is Waiting For A Pandemic'

Part 2: Contradictions between Scientific Findings and Practice