Wronged by your swine-flu report

Published on Saturday 19 December 2009 19:19

I WOULD like to make a complaint about your article entitled "Missing The Point On Swine Flu" (Insight, 13 December).

It started off by discussing a legal protest which I organised to make people aware of discrepancies in the swine-flu campaign.

I have two complaints, the first is being referred to as a "rag-tag band", which is derogatory and a misrepresentation. There were a variety of individuals at the protest, including a doctor, members of two separate autism societies, parents who had lost children after they had taken the MMR vaccine, and many other concerned individuals.

My second complaint relates to the fact that the information I provided to your reporter about our protest was not used.

The facts are that we were initially told 65,000 of us would die this winter due to swine flu and this has since been quietly downgraded to 1,000. There have been no seasonal flu deaths reported in Scotland since the start of the swine-flu pandemic, raising concerns that all flu deaths are being categorised as swine-flu deaths.

During the summer months, only one in 20 people were being correctly diagnosed as having swine flu per week, which resulted in 36,000 out of 40,000 prescriptions of Tamiflu being wrongly administered.

Swine-flu figures are being calculated by unqualified individuals over the telephone, which means that swine flu statistics are very unreliable. And, of course, the swine-flu vaccine has not been tested thoroughly before being given to the public, since trials on the actual vaccine are only now taking place. This lack of testing has concerned the health minister of Poland enough for him to refuse to purchase the vaccine for mass distribution in that country. These are facts, they are concerning and this is why we were protesting.

Claire Knox, Edinburgh