If you have been watching the TV or listening to the radio, you must have heard of the recent H1N1 influenza virus infection pandemic. This virus infection pandemic has fast emerged as the biggest tool in the vaccine marketing repertoire of the global pharmaceutical manufacturing companies.
The evolution of the term 'virus infection pandemic' started with the surfacing of a largely non-existent bird flu in the year 2005. As the bird flu virus infection hype faded off into the graveyard of extinct infections, the marketing teams came up with the 'next big pandemic faced by mankind' in the form of 2009 swine flu virus infection outbreak.
One of the very basic aspects of an actual virus infection pandemic is that its speed of spread ideally outpaces its speed of marketing. This was not the case with H1N1 virus. The speed of fear mongering has been much rapid than the fearful virus itself. In a scenario where the predictions of doom are abound, a puny virus became the marketing tool and a clear and present danger to entire mankind practically overnight.
The 2009 swine flu/H1N1 virus infection is a crystal clear example of fear mongering by pharmas. Coupled by the world media, the low to moderate virus infection became nothing short of modern day Black Death or Bubonic Plague even though its toll remains such that it will not even make up to a few percentage points in comparison to the older, true epidemics.
The entire world saw on live TV how the swine flu was blown into a doomsday device and the gullible WHO lost whatever shreds of credibility it was left with. Medicine companies rode out to the field and saved the day by developing vaccines in a surprisingly short period of time. Ever wondered why AIDS vaccines are taking so long!
For months, the conspirators kept on blowing the hysteria trumpets yet this time even the sheep mentality of the common public was able to see through the lies they were being fed. After months of listening a lot but seeing very little, the public said, "Sorry pharmaceutical companies, but we are not buying, neither literally nor figuratively."
All said and done, the entire swine flu virus infection pandemic was nothing more than a huge exercise by medicine makers to make a few billion dollars at light speed, be they in the form of improved stock value or through direct sales of the medicine. There were lives lost, each of which is regrettable but it must be understood that pharmaceutical companies have started down the track to become 'the boy who cried wolf'.
Fact remains that in the current scenario with super fast communication, H1N1 never had a chance to become a true pandemic scale problem that it was sold as.
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