The man who sold the Eiffel Tower

It may be hard to believe but the Eiffel Tower was originally meant to be a temporary structure built for the 1889 Paris Exposition – the initial plans were to relocate the tower once the Exposition was over.

But 36 years later the Eiffel Tower was still there and was showing signs of ageing, it required extensive maintenance work and there was talk of dismantling it completely. Many Parisians considered the Eiffel Tower an eyesore, which clashed with the grand classical buildings of Paris.

Enter Victor Lustig, a Bohemian con artist, posing as a French government official, claiming to have a government brief to dismantle the Tower. Lustig was nothing if not creative – he organized a meeting with a small group of metal scrap dealers and invited them to tender for the dismantling of the Eiffel Tower – emphasizing the government’s determination to remove this eyesore quickly by selling it as scrap. Lustig was a great judge of character and he targeted Andre Poisson, one of the scrap dealers, who attended the meeting, as the most likely candidate to fall for the scam.

Poisson was keen to conclude the deal quickly – and besides paying for the tower’s scrap metal, he lubricated the process by giving Lusting a considerable bribe. Lustig took the money (the value of the scrap metal as well as the bribe) and ran.

Mr Poisson was in a dilemma – he could not go to the police as he would have exposed himself to ridicule – and possibly to corruption charges as well. “Selling” the Eiffel Tower was probably the greatest scam of all time – until now that is.

One year ago – 11 June, 2009 – Dr Margaret Chan, Director General of the World Health Organization, announced to the world that a Swine Flu Influenza Pandemic had started. The Director General of WHO however failed to state that she had made this remarkable statement on the basis of the advice given to her by experts who had financial interests with pharmaceutical companies which were producing swine flu vaccines or anti-viral drugs!

A report from the Council of Europe issued this month found that Chan’s statement had:

1. Provoked unjustified fear amongst European Citizens

2. Caused dramatic distortion of priorities in public health services throughout Europe

3. Resulted in waste of huge amounts sums of public money.

The health authorities in Malta were also taken in by this scam. Many practicing doctors in Malta remained skeptical of the statements being made and felt that they were not part of the decision making.

The public too remained unconvinced – and in spite of a vigorous public health campaign, the uptake of the vaccines was only 28%, with 72% of the vaccines not being taken up. As a result we are now lumbered with unutilized vaccines which cost us between €2 million and €2.4 million.

So what to do now? The only logical thing to do now is to insist with the pharmaceutical companies that they must accept most of the vaccines back, on the grounds that we were sold these vaccines under false and unethical conditions.

We should also return most of the anti-viral medications we were conned to purchase. Lest anyone thinks we are throwing caution to the wind, I propose we should retain a small amount of both vaccines as well as anti-viral medication. Many consider that the director general’s position at WHO is not tenable and she should be held responsible for this swine flu pandemic hoax.

This was the greatest hoax in medical history – beating the selling of the Eiffel Tower for its audacity and unethical behaviour by a long chalk.