Influenza influencing democracy

The vaccine against the pandemic or so-called swine flu caused scientific, political, and public health controversy all over the world. In Croatia, the whole case told us a lot about the state of the health care system, scientific community , and level of democracy. When the new flu season started in December 2010, I found myself in the same uncomfortable position as at the peak of flu hysteria of 2009, when the World Health Organization (WHO) proclaimed the pandemic (1). As I then reported on the problematic contract between Novartis and the importer, the Institute of Immunology in Zagreb (2), and tried to stimulate a public debate about this contract, many people thought that I could give them an honest advice on whether to receive a flu shot or not. In 2009 and 2010, I received a number of calls and Facebook queries from worried people – mostly with some chronic health problem, who were confused by contradictory pieces of information that they could not put together to make a decision. As I am not a physician, I thought – can I give such ad-vice? Of course, I concluded at first that I could not. However , is the discussion on the contracts between the vaccine makers and European countries in which the makers decline their responsibility for the side-effects meant only for physicians and pharmacologists? To me, it should not be; moreover, the content of such unusual contracts is completely outside of their competence. This is, in the first place, a global precedent, which should be discussed from ethical, legal, human rights, and political aspects, and finally from the aspect of the relationship toward the consumer. In addition, as many governments, particularly the Croatian government, invested much effort to hide the contract from the public, it is a question of suspending democracy. Therefore, we have to seriously ask ourselves – " What is going on here? " I was aware of these issues more than a year ago and tried to explain them during my public appearances, when my colleague editors from TV stations asked me to talk, always in the company of physicians. In one of these TV talk-shows, I openly asked the editor why only physicians were asked to participate in such debates, but I am not sure that my point was taken by anyone. The phenomenon of pandemic flu vaccine is a topic for multidisciplinary discussion, …