Transparency is always important, but this virtue becomes even more important in times of crisis. The close involvement and active, willing mobilisation of people needed in national and international crisis situations is best obtained in a system of transparency where people are well-informed and trust the information available to them.

In a crisis spawned by spread of infectious diseases, it is important to avoid panic and rumors. If people have ready access to information which they have good reason to trust, then it becomes easier to adopt rational and best possible options untainted by scare-mongering and hype. The possibilities of achieving unity of people and avoiding harmful discrimination towards some sections also increases. The likelihood of the best possible decisions being taken increases when there is no cover of needless secrecy.

On the other hand, when facts are deliberately covered up or hidden from people the possibility of unscrupulous persons and forces trying to benefit in selfish and greedy ways from crisis situations increases. Unfortunately, the past record of fighting infectious diseases at a global level has been rather disturbing when seen from this perspective. This became particularly so at the time of the spread of the H1N1 swine flu disease in 2009-10. When news of behind-the-scene manipulations to profit from a crisis situation grew, the prestigious British Medical Journal or BMJ published an expose and several strong citizen groups came forward to demand greater transparency.

The Social Health and Family Affairs Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly, Council of Europe published an important report titled ‘The Handling of the H1N1 Pandemic—More Transparency Needed’. The report said, “The Parliament Assembly is alarmed about the way in which the H1N1 influenza pandemic has been handled, not only by the World Health Organization (WHO), but also by the competent health authorities at the level of the European Union and at the national level. It is particularly troubled by some of the consequences of decisions taken and advice given, leading to distortion of priorities of public health services across Europe, waste of large sums of public money and also unjustified scares and fears about health risks faced by the European public at large.”

Further, the note said, “The Assembly notes that grave shortcomings have been identified regarding the transparency of decision-making processes relating to the pandemic which have generated concerns about the possible influences of the pharmaceutical industry on some of the major decisions relating to the pandemic. The Assembly fears that that this lack of transparency and accountability will result in a plummet in confidence on the advice given by major health institutions. This may prove disastrous in the case of the next disease of pandemic scope which may turn out to be much more serious than the H1N1 Pandemic.”

The text of a resolution passed in the Council of Europe Parliament said, “In order to promote their patented drugs and vaccines against flu pharmaceutical companies influenced scientists and official agencies responsible for public health standards, to alarm governments worldwide and make them squander tight health resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly expose millions of healthy people to the risks of an unknown amount of side-effects of inefficiently tested vaccine.”

Michael Fumento, Director of the Independent Journalism Project, wrote in the Forbes website an article provocatively titled ‘Why the WHO Faked A Pandemic’ (5 February 2010). He pointed out that the fatality rate of the swine flu had turned out to be milder than ordinary seasonal flu, but a pandemic had been declared with undue haste. He wrote, “this wasn’t merely overcautiousness, or simple misjudgment. The pandemic declaration and all the Klaxon-ringing since (then) reflect sheer dishonesty motivated not by medical concerns but political ones.”

Fumento also quoted the director of the WHO Collaborating Center for Epidemiology in Munster, Germany as stating that we are witnessing a gigantic misallocation of resources ($18 billion so far) in terms of public health. In fact, to their credit some of the WHO top officials came at least halfway in acknowledging some of the problems and tried to make amends. On 12 April 2010 Reuters released a report written by Stephanie Nebehay titled ‘WHO admits shortcomings in handling flu pandemic.’ This report said that the WHO has conceded shortcomings in its handling of the H1N1 swine flu pandemic.

This report quoted Keiji Fakuda, described as the WHO’s top influenza expert, as stating that the UN agency’s six-phase system for declaring a pandemic had shown confusion about the flu bug which was ultimately not as deadly as earlier feared. This top expert said, “The reality is there is a huge amount of uncertainty (in a pandemic). I think we did not convey the uncertainty. That was interpreted by many as a non-transparent process.”

BMJ teamed up with an organization of investigative journalists to publish an expose of the conflict of interest of key scientists advising the WHO on planning for an influenza pandemic doing paid work for the pharmaceutical firms that stood to gain from this guidance. Later the BMJ editor wrote that the expose had led to the WHO initiating some badly-needed reforms.

“In fact, the WHO endorsed the article’s central argument which was that its handling of conflict of interest needs to be improved. Last year (WHO top boss) Margaret Chen commenced an independent review into the WHO’s handling of the pandemic led by Harvey Fineberg. Its findings were published in May. Far from discrediting the BMJ article, the report echoes the article’s concerns.”

While some steps towards increasing transparency were taken when huge problems were uncovered, transparency related problems remain a serious concern even today in matters relating to global and national responses to outbreaks of infectious diseases.

(The writer was formerly Convener of National Campaign for People’s Right to Information)