Warnings Of Pandemics

EDM number 630 in 2009-10, proposed by Paul Flynn on 18/01/2010.
Categorised under the topics of Communicable diseases and Health education and preventive medicine.

That this House believes that exaggerated claims of the dangers of pandemics may undermine the public's faith in warnings of future serious health emergencies; recalls the claims that severe acute respiratory syndrome would infect up to one in four of the population, avian influenza up to 750,000, bovine spongiform encephalopathy/Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease up to 136,000, and that swine influenza could result in 65,000 British deaths; notes that a maximum of 350 deaths have occurred, many of which involved patients with other health problems; concludes that the World Health Organisation (WHO) forecast and fear-mongering by the media greatly overstated the risk; and welcomes the investigation by the Council of Europe to ascertain whether the WHO's declaration was determined on objective epidemiological evidence or on pressure from the pharmaceutical lobby.

This motion has been signed by a total of 26 MPs.