After weeks of media-fueled controversy concerning the safety of domestically produced vaccines for the A(H1N1) influenza virus, the Department of Health said on Tuesday that the virus was now under control and that the second wave of the epidemic was petering out.
The announcement came the same week the WHO’s decision to declare a global pandemic was questioned by the EU’s human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe.
During hearings held by the council’s health body, WHO officials were grilled on whether they exaggerated the dangers of A(H1N1), or swine flu, under pressure from multinational pharmaceutical companies.
The officials denied the accusations and said that there had been no conflict of interest, though they said they took advice from experts, several of whom represented drug companies that stood to benefit from countries that had contracts to purchase vaccines in case of a pandemic.
The situation in Taiwan mirrored that in Europe, with local vaccine producer Adimmune Corp also coming under intense scrutiny.
The focus here, however, was not on the fact that Adimmune — chaired by a man with close relations to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) — was the sole bidder for the government’s vaccine contract, but rather on whether the domestically produced vaccine was safe following sensationalized reports of illness and deaths among people who had received the vaccine.
This alone was the reason many people in Taiwan were less than enthusiastic about getting vaccinated. The equally important news that the WHO’s decision to announce a pandemic in the first place may have been flawed — and that, as with regular influenza, the A(H1N1) virus mainly kills people with underlying chronic illnesses — appears to have escaped notice.
Many people will admit to being terrified by initial reports from Mexico last April of a new killer flu strain that was killing young people. That fear increased as cases of the “deadly virus” began to appear in countries around the globe.
Nine months on, however, and those initial fears proved unwarranted as the strain turned out to be much less potent than first thought, with a fatality rate lower than that of the seasonal flu.
Of course, that doesn’t rule out the possibility that the A(H1N1) virus could mutate into something more worrying, but surely someone at the WHO should be held responsible for causing widespread panic over what proved to be another flu strain.
If anything, the whole swine flu episode has taught us that even with the sternest prevention measures in place, a killer disease could quickly spread around the world in an age of globalization. So, despite the unjustified panic that was created this time around, there are valuable lessons for all involved.
For the WHO, it will be a case of trying to rebuild its credibility and ensuring that next time it declares a pandemic, people around the globe won’t think it is crying wolf.
For Taiwan, it is another timely lesson for this government on the value of effective communication when matters of public health are paramount.
Given this administration’s numerous failures in this regard, it is a lesson it needs to take on board rapidly.
China has not been a top-tier issue for much of the second Trump administration. Instead, Trump has focused considerable energy on Ukraine, Israel, Iran, and defending America’s borders. At home, Trump has been busy passing an overhaul to America’s tax system, deporting unlawful immigrants, and targeting his political enemies. More recently, he has been consumed by the fallout of a political scandal involving his past relationship with a disgraced sex offender. When the administration has focused on China, there has not been a consistent throughline in its approach or its public statements. This lack of overarching narrative likely reflects a combination
Father’s Day, as celebrated around the world, has its roots in the early 20th century US. In 1910, the state of Washington marked the world’s first official Father’s Day. Later, in 1972, then-US president Richard Nixon signed a proclamation establishing the third Sunday of June as a national holiday honoring fathers. Many countries have since followed suit, adopting the same date. In Taiwan, the celebration takes a different form — both in timing and meaning. Taiwan’s Father’s Day falls on Aug. 8, a date chosen not for historical events, but for the beauty of language. In Mandarin, “eight eight” is pronounced
US President Donald Trump’s alleged request that Taiwanese President William Lai (賴清德) not stop in New York while traveling to three of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies, after his administration also rescheduled a visit to Washington by the minister of national defense, sets an unwise precedent and risks locking the US into a trajectory of either direct conflict with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) or capitulation to it over Taiwan. Taiwanese authorities have said that no plans to request a stopover in the US had been submitted to Washington, but Trump shared a direct call with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平)
It is difficult to think of an issue that has monopolized political commentary as intensely as the recall movement and the autopsy of the July 26 failures. These commentaries have come from diverse sources within Taiwan and abroad, from local Taiwanese members of the public and academics, foreign academics resident in Taiwan, and overseas Taiwanese working in US universities. There is a lack of consensus that Taiwan’s democracy is either dying in ashes or has become a phoenix rising from the ashes, nurtured into existence by civic groups and rational voters. There are narratives of extreme polarization and an alarming
RSS