Swine Flu A Bust

"News flash: Swine flu is a massively overrated threat — overrated not only in the media but by the World Health Organization, the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and others who have a duty to know better." [Michael Fumento, New York Post, October 8, 2009]

Doing yeoman's work on the swine flu pandemic (that wasn't) is Michael Fumento, attorney and writer specializing in health and science issues. Since the H1N1 outbreak last April, Mr. Fumento has pored over the statistics, analyses, and predictions by national and international health agencies. At every turn he has proven wrong the prognosticators from the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the media.

To review:

April 2009: The Obama administration sounds the first alarm on Swine Flu with hardly any deaths.

June 2009: Eleven weeks into the outbreak, WHO declares H1N1 a pandemic with only 144 deaths worldwide.

August 2009: The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology predicts as many as 90,000 deaths, with a peak occurring in mid-October. The same month the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) reports 1,544 "flu-related" deaths, of which only 240 are lab-verified as any kind of flu.

October 2009: CDC reports 22 million infections with 4,000 deaths. However, the seasonal flu infects about 15 million Americans a month and kills 36,000 annually over a 4 month period - hardly numbers to warrant such panic.

So what about international figures? Did other countries experience pandemic-sized death rates from the swine flu? London's Independent lays out Britain's numbers in the following manner:

65,000 - Number of deaths in worst-case scenario for Britain published in July.

19,000 - Revised worst-case scenario outlined in September.

1,000 - Revised worst-case scenario last month (October).

154 - Number of deaths in Britain so far (as of November).

4,000 - 8,000 - Average annual death toll in Britain from seasonal winter flu.

Similarly, Health Canada reports annual deaths from seasonal flu as 2,000 - 8,000, but after 8 months into the H1N1 pandemic only 138 Canadians had died. To date, WHO is reporting approximately 13,000 deaths worldwide since the April outbreak, and the CDC is claiming 10,000 of these deaths here in the US. For some perspective, the Spanish Flu of 1918-19 killed 675,000 Americans and up to 50 million worldwide.

And forget about attributing these low death rates to successful vaccination programs. Remember all the news stories surrounding the vaccine shortages here in the US?

"Anticipated H1N1 Vaccine Shortage Has U.S. Officials Scrambling To Bring On New Manufacturing" [Fox News, August 8, 2009]

"Behind The H1N1 Vaccine Shortage" [Forbes.com, October 30, 2009]

"Health Officials Frustrated By H1N1 Vaccine Shortage" [Wall Street Journal, November 4, 2009]

So then why the alarm? As Fumento states, "Maybe because government, H.L Mencken has observed, ever seeks 'to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.'" Such as the Avian Flu crisis? And the SARS crisis? It seems to me that government and the World Health Organization have a lot of 'splainin' to do.