Swine flu: TV presenter’s daughter ‘almost died’ after taking Tamiflu

August 11, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

Andrew Castle said: 'I can tell you that my child - who was not diagnosed at all - she had asthma, she took Tamiflu and almost died.'

www.telegraph.co.uk

Andy Burnham, the Health Secretary, defended giving swine flu drug Tamiflu to children as Andrew Castle, the TV presenter, said his daughter “almost died” after taking it.

Mr Burnham was confronted by Castle on GMTV after research cast doubt that the anti-viral drug’s benefits outweighed its side-effects.

Castle said his older daughter, Georgina, had a “respiratory collapse” and “suffered very heavily” after being “just handed” the drug without having been properly diagnosed.

The presenter said: “I can tell you that my child – who was not diagnosed at all – she had asthma, she took Tamiflu and almost died.”

Mr Burnham sympathised with Castle, saying it must have been “very worrying”, but maintained that advice to parents to treat swine flu with Tamiflu remained unchanged.

He said Georgina would have been given Tamiflu during the earlier “containment” phase of swine flu.

He stressed that the research dealt with seasonal flu and not swine flu, saying: “It’s very much a safety-first approach.”

Given that swine flu had a “disproportionate effect” on children, he maintained that Tamiflu was “our only line of defence”.

Some 300,000 people in England, including children and adults, have received courses of Tamiflu through the Government’s National Pandemic Flu Service for England.

But on Monday, Oxford University researchers said children should not be given the anti-viral drug to combat swine flu. Read full article…