Mike Adams
Natural News
Tuesday, Oct 20th, 2009

In the world of virology, few people have the track record of
achievements attributed to Dr. Albert Osterhaus. He’s the Head of
Department of Virology at the Erasmus MC, University of Rotterdam.
Among his many achievements, he was the first to prove the infection
mechanism of SARS in 2003. He’s also credited with being the
first to detect the cross-species infection mechanism of H5N1.

In his 20 years of dedication to the study of infectious disease,
Dr. Osterhaus has authored more than 650 scientific papers and is
credited with the identification of a dozen viral pathogens. To anyone
who works in any scientific field, these are astonishing achievements.

Dr. Osterhaus’s credentials and expertise in his field
aren’t in question. What’s being scrutinized now, according
to a short report published by the journal Science, are his links to corporate interests that stand to potentially profit from the swine flu pandemic.

According to a European Commission “Research” website,
Dr. Osterhaus is the co-founder of two biotech companies, and is
involved in promoting vaccines as a solution against a future pandemic. As published on the Science website:

“Last week, his reputation took a nosedive after it was
alleged that he has been stoking pandemic fears to promote his own
business interests in vaccine development. As Science went to press,
the Dutch House of Representatives had even slated an emergency debate
about the matter.”

Little else is currently known on the matter. No other official
announcements have yet appeared. For such allegations against such an
esteemed scientist to appear on the website of the journal Science is, all by itself, a noteworthy development.

Don’t leap to conclusions until we know more

At the same time, NaturalNews
urges readers to exercise caution in reading too much into this. To our
knowledge, nothing has been proven against Dr. Osterhaus at this point.
And even though we may be opposed to flu vaccines as a matter of
principle, we should at least consider a very reasonable question: What
else is this doctor supposed to be involved with if not the area of his
expertise?

For him to start a biotech company that leverages his technical
expertise in the area of virology seems entirely reasonable. Similarly,
an expert in optics could be reasonably expected to be financially
involved in a telescope manufacturing venture at some point.

The real question is whether Dr. Osterhaus intentionally exaggerated the threat of the swine flu pandemic
specifically to benefit his own bottom line. And that’s a very
tricky question, it turns out. The assessment of the real danger of H1N1
is highly subjective. Some say it’s harmless, but others point
out the potential possibility for rapid evolution of the circulating
strains of H1N1 into a far more dangerous pathogen.

Here at NaturalNews, we continue to say that taking vitamin D is far better for you than taking a vaccine shot
for any flu: Seasonal flu, swine flu or otherwise. But that
doesn’t mean the virus won’t at some point mutate into a
strain that could pose a very serious threat to a largely vitamin D
deficient population.

It’s a fine line between “stoking fears” and
simply “educating people” about what might be coming.
I’ve been accused of stoking fears about the coming collapse of
the U.S. currency, and yet in my heart, I know that warning about such
inevitable developments is done with the highest intentions — to
hope that people will take precautions so they don’t get wiped
out when the Federal Reserve’s game of musical chairs comes to a
halt.

To give him the benefit of the doubt, perhaps Dr. Osterhaus is
coming from the same place. Maybe he is “stoking fears”
about the pandemic, but perhaps he’s doing so from a place of
merely hoping to warn people about what he believes is coming. Maybe
he’s seen research that we haven’t. Perhaps he’s been
privy to some secret biotech lab documents that even the press
isn’t aware of, and he’s doing his best to try to warn the
world before he gets silenced. And maybe, just maybe, this attack on
his character by the journal Science is precisely that
attempt at destroying the reputation of a scientist before he gets the
opportunity to go public with what he knows.

This is all just speculation at this point, of course, but these are
some of the possibilities I urge the natural health community to
consider before leaping to any conclusions about Dr. Osterhaus. We need
a lot more information than what is publicly available right now before
we have the right to decide anything more about his intentions and
actions.

It may end up that the accusations against him are well deserved,
but until we can know that with a much greater degree of confidence,
I’m not about to publicly condemn this scientist (even though I
strongly disagree with the vaccines he appears to promote).