The Grauniad seems to be dying - hurrah!

grandmaster. If this paper has been running at a loss for years, then why have it? Unless it its to get a message/messages/agendas across to public. In saying this the Times has made losses of £45 million and is apparently (according to the Guadian media group) being propped up by the Sun and the News of the World. It reminds me of when I had a business once, it was failing but I ran it at a loss, because I did not want to admit I had failed!

Oooh (in no way) contentious...

The quality of the writing itself in the Guardian (ALL content free on website) is far superior to the other broadsheets.

Do you think they publish Autotrader out of a passion for second hand cars?
It's common knowledge that it runs at a loss. The fact that OP didn't already know that explains the ill informed and attention-seeking points.

Do some actual READING so you can work out your own opinions rather than regurgitating idiotic, superficial comments you clearly do not understand.

The council of Europe is a lobbying group.

It is not associated with the European Union.

Claig.You say 'millions of people access the Guardian website across the globe. Who are these people? Do you have any figures, sites we can access to prove this? This paper is in its last legs, I agree with you that they may have some great journalists, but not enough to keep this very insular paper afloat. I did flick through the paper today, but the leader was so boring, even I could not bear to part with my £1.00 to buy it! If anyone can find anything remotely interesting/amusing/annoying, about the Guardian.please post it! Goodnight!

Thanks, edam. Have just looked her up. Looks like very good stuff. I know that the Guardian is a very good newspaper and contains lots of very good information, compiled by great journalists. That's why millions of people across the world access its website. Without journalists on all of our newspapers uncovering conflicts of interest and forcing transparency, the public wouldn't be aware of what is going on.

Claig, if you want exposes on pharmaceuticals, you need to read the Guardian. Look up Sarah Boseley's stuff.

'DH tells me he is notorious for not being enough of a mathematician to interpret statistics either'

But he is head of health for the Council of Europe. Surely at his level, he has teams of PhDs from the top universities in Europe to crunch numbers and interpret statistics.

The Daily Mail exposed the conflicts of interest involved. It informed teh public. Without journalists finding these things out, the people wouldn't have been aware at all.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1243034/Swine-flu-taskforces-links-vaccine-giant-More-half-experts-fighting-pandemic-ties-drug-firms.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1302505/WHO-swine-flu-advisers-ties-drug-firms-Experts-linked-vaccine-producers.html

Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg may be wrong. But when someone in as important a position as him, as head of health for the Council of Europe, describes the H1N1 outbreak as 'one of the greatest medical scandals of the century', it is worth looking into. It turns out there was no pandemic.

Wolfgang Wodard may be a physician, but he is not a virologist, nor is he an epidemiologist. DH tells me he is notorious for not being enough of a mathematician to interpret statistics either. Notoriousbthat is in the small and slightly incestuous world of science geeks.

He mentioned side effects. That's what worries me.

''They have made them squander tight healthcare resources for inefficient vaccine strategies and needlessly exposed millions of healthy people to the risk of unknown side-effects of insufficiently tested vaccines.'

If you want to take tamiflu and the swine flu vaccine, then you should take it. I will choose not to.

It's not people like me. It's people like Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg.

'Wolfgang Wodarg, head of health at the Council of Europe, accused the makers of flu drugs and vaccines of influencing the World Health Organisation's decision to declare a pandemic.

'Dr Wodarg has branded the H1N1 outbreak as 'one of the greatest medical scandals of the century'.

He said: 'We have had a mild flu - and a false pandemic.'

He added the seeds of the scare were sown five years ago, when it was feared the much more lethal bird flu virus would mutate into a human form.

The 'atmosphere of panic' led to governments stockpiling the anti-flu drug Tamiflu and putting in place 'sleeping contracts' for millions of doses of vaccine

Dr Wodarg said: 'The governments have sealed contracts with vaccine producers where they secure orders in advance and take upon themselves almost all the responsibility.

'In this way the producers of vaccines are sure of enormous gains without having any financial risks.

'So they just wait, until WHO says "pandemic" and activate the contracts.'

He also claims that to further push their interests, leading drug companies placed 'their people' in the 'cogs' of the WHO and other influential organisations.'

I didn't know all of that; Dr. Wolfgang Wodarg knew it.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242147/The-false-pandemic-Drug-firms-cashed-scare-swine-flu-claims-Euro-health-chief.html#ixzz1Q8OUxBNG

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242147/The-false-pandemic-Drug-firms-cashed-scare-swine-flu-claims-Euro-health-chief.html#ixzz1Q8OAohSu

Well Claig unfortunately natural systems such as viral mutations don't follow the timelines dictated by the tabloids. To suggest that because the mutations one year weren't as devastating as feared and that the precautions the worldwide scientific community put in place to contain the outbreaks at source worked in the way that they were intended to i.e. limited the spread of a potentially devastating illness, is somehow a reason to ignore any future warnings from people whose entire professional life studying such things just serves to illustrate how dangerous it is to listen to people like you.

The last Ebola outbreak was contained using the same measures as used for the swine flu. Care to stand in the contamination zone next time simply because some arts graduate with no scientific education who doesn't understand the science writes a disparaging article in a tabloid? Go ahead. I for one will examine the evidence and consult with those with a better understanding of these things then take their professional advice.

If they need to sell more drugs, maybe there will be more panics in the future. I don't know if the Guardian told us of Rumsfeld's links to Tamiflu, but the Mail did

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1176743/Donald-Rumsfelds-controversial-links-drug-company-Tamiflu.html

and the Mail quoted Dr Mercola

'Dr Joseph Mercola, author of The Great Bird Flu Hoax, said yesterday: ?The only thing all this talk of swine flu does is spread fear. President Bush sought to instil panic by telling us a minimum of 200,000 people will die from avian flu but it could be as bad as two million deaths in the US alone. This hoax was justified by the immediate purchase of 80million doses of Tamiflu.?

H1N1 pandemic panic was certainly the creation of pharmameutical corporations. More like waiting for twenty years for the opportunity to maximise margins to coincide with the sweetest vaccine manufacture deals with governments. And the lovely no liability cherry on the top. Mmmmmmmm. Public panic. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

I don't think it is journalists perpetuating scare stories. That's just blaming the messenger.

Here is the ex-head of the civil sevice warning us not to believe scare stories.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2001189/Ministers-fall-climate-folly-warns-ex-Civil-Service-chief.html

'He reckons they've been waiting for the H1N1 flu pandemic for the last 20 years'

Yes that's what they've been saying. They also say we have passed the "tipping point" and will face catastrophic climate change. They tell us of tidal waves and sea levels rising and whole areas of the country being submerged by water. They call it global warming. I think that is the panic.

Here's the sort of thing the Daily Mail wrote about the pandemic science

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1242147/The-false-pandemic-Drug-firms-cashed-scare-swine-flu-claims-Euro-health-chief.html

Claig, DH is a virologist. He reckons they've been waiting for the H1N1 flu pandemic for the last 20 years. It was just luck and good planning that the flu didn't spread as much as was anticipated this year. Are you suggesting that because the Chief Medical Officer thought that, on the balance of probabilities and the available scientific evidence, that it was worth planning for the possibility of a pandemic, then it didn't happen this year, that we should then disregard everything else they say?

That's the sort of ill informed, simplicstic thinking that leads to panics. it's the sort of thing that journalists with no grounding in science use to perpetuate their scare stories. It's the sort of thing the Daily Mail would write....oh.

I've heard of that book. I should really read it one day. Just seen that an 8 hour documentary of the book is available on youtube.

MoreBeta - on a thread about a million years ago you mentioned a book called "The Prize" about the history of the oil industry.

Reading it right now (slowly, it's very long). AMAZING book. Great recommendation. Thank you

'But GB did and said many regrettable things.'

We have found an area of agreement.

Gordon Brown said we have only 50 days left to save the planet, and many climatologists believed that too.

That is of course taken out of context - even in context it was a pretty daft statement. But GB did and said many regrettable things.

Will they pay us all back, when they eventually say "oops, sorry, our computer models contained errors, now we're going to have global cooling instead"?

Yes there's no certainty in anything. It's the same with climate change and global warming, but that doesn't stop them raising taxes to "save the planet".

IIRC it was actually more that they had to deal with the possibility that there might be a pandemic. The probability was deemed sufficiently high that they had to plan for that eventuality.

sorry, meant to say "climate scientists". Climatologists are probably not the same thing.

Gordon Brown said we have only 50 days left to save the planet, and many climatologists believed that too.