WHO Says It's Not Credible?

Yesterday, HOTH reported on a U.N. agency report that calls for less meat consumption as a way to protect the environment, pointing out that the same agency established a global warming panel that used falsified data to "prove" the earth is getting warmer. Now comes word that the World Health Organization -- another U.N. body -- exaggerated the threat posed by H1N1.

Two recent reports on the WHO's handling of the H1N1 pandemic, which last May sent U.S. pork prices plummeting and caused some U.S. trading partners to ban pork imports because the media misnamed the virus "swine flu," say the agency was influenced by drug companies that make antiviral drugs and vaccines. One report says WHO's response caused widespread, unnecessary fear and prompted countries around the world to waste millions of dollars.

Indeed, during the height of the flu outbreak last summer, one WHO director claimed that H1N1 could be contracted from eating pork if it had blood in it even though the virus isn't systemic in pigs or humans. (WHO had to issue a retraction of that statement in early May 2009, saying pork is safe to eat.) Turns out, that same WHO official has been lobbying Congress, with groups opposed to modern livestock production, to ban animal health products from use in swine production because he says antibiotic use in food animals is causing antibiotic resistance in people.

As HOTH noted in an earlier post, the top scientists with NIH and CDC recently testified before a congressional committee that there is no study linking antibiotic use in animals with resistance.