Pandemic Definition and Mandatory Vaccination - with look back in time

“An influenza pandemic occurs when a new virus influenza appears against which the human population has no immunity, resulting in several simultaneous epidemics worldwide with enormous numbers of deaths and illness”. This statement could be found on the webpage of the World Health Organization (WHO) between 2003 and 2009.

Does it not look like a definition?

 When did the WHO’s flip-flopping on the definition of a pandemic begin? H1N1 (swine influenza) pandemic was declared by the WHO on June 11, 2009. In the meantime, remarkable things happened. In May 2009, the webpage of the WHO was altered (allegedly as a result of a query of a CNN reporter). After the change, the phrase “with enormous numbers of deaths and illness” disappeared. A few months later, especially Europe started to question the meaning of this change and a controversy started. The Council of Europe put forth the argument that based on the new definition, the WHO was able to declare the pandemic without proving the seriousness of the situation caused  the swine inluenza outbreak. In addition, there were ethical concerns and questions about possible conflict of interests.

At that moment, the WHO turned out to be very creative! The Organization stated that there were many descriptions of a pandemic on their website but a formal definition had never existed, and the decision to declare a pandemic was based on … “pandemic phase” definition, not on “pandemic influenza” definition.

Indeed, there were “pandemic influenza guidelines”: From 1999, 2005 and 2009. Apparently, the guidelines were changed in 2009 as well. From my standpoint, it is utterly confusing. Interestingly, the term from Phase 4 of the new guidelines - “reassortant virus” - meant that it did not have to be a new subtype of the virus which had not occurred for many years and to which the population would be susceptible. Thus, it may be assumed that under the guidelines from 2005, a pandemic of H1N1 would not have been declared.

How did the WHO “progress” with the definitions under the coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19 pandemic)? The present definition has become even shorter: “The worldwide spread of a new disease”, whereby the term“new disease” seems to be very ambiguous.

So, has the WHO changed its pandemic definitions or perhaps not? Why does their explanation appear to be somewhat strangely convoluted? Let us consider some aspects of this matter: The  decisions of this Organization have a huge impact on the life and health of the entire world population. In this context, the question arises whether a supranational Organization can afford lack of transparency by not providing unified pandemic definitions and explanations. Moreover, WHO changed the descriptions, definitions, statements (or whatever they call it) less than a month before declaration of the H1N1 pandemic.

It leads to the conclusion that the WHO did change the definition of a pandemic.

Or rather, it changed more than one of them, several times …

In the context of pandemics, we discover that since 1777, pandemics and vaccines have been closely intertwined with each other.

Let us take a look at the second part of our story - the mandatory vaccinations.

In 1777, during the American Revolutionary War, the American troops had to be inoculated with smallpox virus. In 1796, the first smallpox vaccine was officially tested on a child by an English physician, Edward Jenner. He used a little amount of the pus from the abscesses of someone suffering from cowpox. According to Jenner, this method was safer and efficient.

Within a few decades, the vaccine became mandatory in several countries like Norway, Russia and Sweden. In the USA, a certain Mr. Jacobson refused to get vaccinated and had to pay a fine of $5 (Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 1905). However, we should pay attention to the fact that children, whose doctors provided them with a certificate stating that they were not fit to get vaccinated, were exempted from it.

In 1980, smallpox (variola major) was declared eradicated.

We are left with one vital question: Should Covid vaccination be made mandatory? It has been developed in less than twelve months (in modern times, it usually takes 5-15 years). In Europe, COMIRNATY (the most widely used COVID-19 vaccine in Poland), was granted a conditional marketing authorisation by European Medicines Agency (EMA). It happened in late 2020.

The clinical trials and their quality stirred up a lot of controversy. In 2021, The British Medical Journal (BMJ) was informed about poor practices at Ventavia Research Group (a Pfizer’s subcontractor) by its regional director. Since it is all about biomedical ethical principles and involves legal issues, we should take several important aspects into account.

Smallpox was a disease with a Case Mortality Rate  (CFR) of 20% to 60%. The vaccine development lasted several hundred years. If we evaluate earlier policies applied in similar situations, we can clearly see that COVID-19 (whether we consider IFR, Infection Fatality Ratio, or CFR) has never justified a mandatory vaccine. Its IFR was globally about 0.15% earlier in the course of the pandemic. According to recent information published by Nature, IFR ranges from 0.49–2.53%, depending on numerous factors. Even though the IFR has always been comparably low, an aspect deserves some attention: The fact that Covid vaccines did not reduce the IFR. The vaccine does not prevent transmission of SARS-CoV-2, does not assure sterilising immunity, and their ability to prevent hospitalization has not been factually proven. Additionally, the public was informed about Relative Risk Reduction (RRR) of the vaccine (95%) for Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, but not about the interrelated Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR) which reflects the ”real” efficacy rate which amounted to about 0,67 - 0.80%.

It is clear that 95% efficacy sounds more impressive. But as the data shows, it is definitely misleading.

Last but not least, the safety of the vaccines is very questionable, and there are indications of very serious (death included) vaccine adverse events underreporting ((less than 1% of adverse events is reported). Interestingly, during the last two last years, no carcinogenicity and genotoxicity studies were performed. The same applies to interactions with other medicines. We could have a long discourse concerning research technique Polymerase Chain Reaction used as a controversial diagnostic test PCR during the pandemic, or likewise about the mRNA vaccine technology. We could also talk about findings made by pathologists who performed autopsies or biopsies on vaccinated people. However, it deserves a separate analysis.

Can we therefore state that benefits of all the current vaccines under a conditional marketing authorisation outweigh their adverse events?

The answer is “no", since there is no reliable data available to confirm that the biggest experiment in the world’s history has been beneficial for the humanity.

 All available facts indicate that the opposite is true.

Maria Gunderson