Drug companies are being accused of unnecessarily raising fears over the H1N1 swine flu virus so as to increase profits by boosting sales of their new vaccines.

The allegations, made in the parliamentary assembly of the Strasbourg based Council of Europe, are surfacing as several countries, notably the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, are looking to dispose of excess supplies of the unwanted vaccines (BMJ 2010;340:c170, 11 Jan, doi:10.1136/bmj.c170).

Wolfgang Wodarg, a German Social Democrat MP and chairman of the assembly’s health subcommittee, is, with the support of a cross party group of Council of Europe parliamentarians, pressing for a pan-European investigation into the role of the companies in the current pandemic.

“We have twice had major alarms. The first was with bird flu, and now this. It looks like a big marketing campaign for extra profits and costs health authorities a lot of money,” he said.

Read article at http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/340/jan12_2/c198