Ministers blew £650MILLION on useless anti-flu drugs

[dutchman]

The £653million spent on drugs to stave off a flu pandemic was ‘money thrown down the drain’, a damning report found yesterday.



The drugs – Tamiflu and Relenza – were stockpiled at huge cost by health chiefs in the hope they could stem the effects of a pandemic.

The mass purchase was triggered in 2005 when Government scientists warned that as many as 700,000 Britons could die from deadly bird flu.

After millions of doses were stockpiled, spending on the drugs escalated still further with the outbreak of swine flu (H1N1 virus) in 2009, the first pandemic in 40 years.

The anti-viral medicines were purchased to reduce admissions to hospital and dangerous complications from flu such as pneumonia.

But the drugs work no better than remedies such as paracetamol, according to an analysis by researchers. There are also claims that vital information from clinical trials was withheld from regulators, researchers and doctors.

The report, which analysed data from published and unpublished trials, concludes there is no evidence to show that the drugs reduce hospital admissions or complications.

It also says the two drugs do shorten the symptoms of flu but only by half a day – about the same as some over-the-counter drugs.

The review by Cochrane, an independent, international network of researchers, also found Tamiflu had side effects including a higher risk of psychiatric and kidney symptoms.

The authors of the report, published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), called for an immediate end to stockpiling of the drugs on the basis of the evidence.

[rebbonk]

They won't care, it's not their money!