Futurepower: Be skeptical about flu reports.

Be skeptical about flu reports.

by Michael Jennings
©2009, 2012 Futurepower®, Inc.
February 18, 2012, 7th edition
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technology consulting.

Articles by The Atlantic magazine, CBS News, the New York Times, and others linked below give a very different perspective than most reports about the 2009 flu season. They say that despite the many other reports, the 2009 season was apparently a normal flu season in the United States. Here are a few important points:

1) The rate of "swine flu" infection fell to low levels in August 2009. The swine flu was not especially dangerous.

2) Most reports of "flu" are not actually flu. Only a small percentage of cases of sickness are actually tested.

3) Almost all reports use a misleading name. H1N1 is a type of virus. The "swine flu" is is a kind of H1N1. A seasonal flu had not yet appeared when this was written in 2009, but seasonal flu is usually H1N1, also.

4) Apparently the U.S. government has been involved in fraud to sell flu vaccines.

5) The "U.S. national emergency" concerning flu declared in 2009 was not an emergency.

6) Evidence shows that flu vaccines don't actually protect against the flu.

H1N1 is a common, normally less dangerous kind of flu. The name "swine flu" is misleading. Swine flu is a variation of H1N1 virus. Most articles and TV commentary about flu don't even name the virus correctly. H1N1 is a common virus subtype, of the type called "Influenza A". Variations of H1N1 have existed since at least 1918. H1N1 is not the "swine flu" about which there have been so many news reports. Also, H1N1 flu variations usually have milder symptoms than other types of flu. There was an exception, however; the 1918 strain of H1N1, popularly called the Spanish flu, was very dangerous.

From the Wikipedia article which was linked above:

The May 1, 2009 BBC article, What scientists know about swine flu, says, "The swine flu strain is a H1N1 virus, the same type as seasonal flu which circulates throughout the world every year", and "there is nothing about the genetic make-up of the new virus which is a cause for particular concern".

The article in The Atlantic magazine, Does the Vaccine Matter?, seems to the author of this article to be far more accurate than most, but even it makes the mistake of being sloppy about the name of the new strain of flu. Perhaps the correct name should be "2009 novel influenza A H1N1", or 2009 pandemic novel H1N1 swine flu. The CDC, the U.S. Center for Disease Control, has also been sloppy about the naming. There are other names, as mentioned in this Wikipedia article, 2009 flu pandemic.

Viruses mutate very rapidly, and many variations of 2009 pandemic novel H1N1 swine flu have been found. Sometimes flu viruses mutate so rapidly that the viruses at the end of the flu season are immune to the vaccines made at the beginning of the season.

The CDC published a poorly written article discussing the fact that the naming of viruses is confusing for scientists, also. "Virologists seem to be struggling with taxonomy [naming] more than scientists in other disciplines."

The new virus was named "swine flu" only because there is a virus in pigs in Europe that has some genetic similarity to the virus that infects humans.

2009 pandemic novel H1N1 swine flu is apparently not especially dangerous. Countries in the southern hemisphere had already finished their 2009 winter in November 2009 when this article was written. It was spring there by then. According to this Australian Broadcasting Corporation (called ABC, like the broadcasting company in the U.S.) article about the experiences of one hospital, Record hospitalisations linked to swine flu, says, "Numbers of swine flu death are in fact very, very low", and "... the hospital has seen no cases of swine flu since the end of August".

The New York Times reports that the U.S. had the same experience as in Australia. The October 29, 2009 article, Swine Flu Hit Millions in Spring, Agency Says, says that the swine flu mostly stopped spreading in July 2009 ("faded out"). The article says that the CDC estimated that there were "1.8 million to 5.7 million cases" in the United States. However, only 44,000 were confirmed by laboratory analysis. All the rest were merely estimates. The article says that 302 people died, but does not say whether those people had other illnesses.

Like the Australian and New York Times articles, almost all the reports suggest important questions. Were there "record hospitalisations" because people were unusually sick, or because of hysteria? Other reports indicate that people who died were usually very sick with other illnesses.

The article in The Atlantic magazine says, "Late last spring, as headlines and airwaves warned of a possible pandemic, patients like Newman’s began clogging emergency rooms across the country, a sneezing, coughing, infectious tide of humanity more worried than truly sick, ..."

The Atlantic magazine article also says, "The vast majority of panicky patients who came in the door at St. Luke’s and other emergency departments didn’t actually have the virus, and of those who did, most were not sick enough to need hospitalization."

Here is another quote from The Atlantic magazine article:

'We think we have the flu anytime we fall ill with an ailment that brings on headache, malaise, fever, coughing, sneezing, and that achy feeling as if we’ve been sleeping on a bed of rocks, but researchers have found that at most half, and perhaps as few as 7 or 8 percent, of such cases are actually caused by an influenza virus in any given year. More than 200 known viruses and other pathogens can cause the suite of symptoms known as “influenza-like illness”; respiratory syncytial virus, bocavirus, coronavirus, and rhinovirus are just a few of the bugs that can make a person feel rotten. And depending on the season, in up to two-thirds of the cases of flu-like illness, no cause at all can be found.'

The author of this article is not a doctor. The intention is only to communicate some of the many causes for skepticism. For example, most articles that say there are "swine flu" cases are apparently only talking about flu in general. It is unusual that cases of sickness are tested for 2009 pandemic novel H1N1 swine flu, because that is so expensive and time-consuming.

The "U.S. national emergency" in 2009 was not an emergency. U.S. President Obama declared a "national emergency", but that was only to make preparations. There was no emergency, according to the USA Today article, 'National emergency' for H1N1 no cause for alarm, experts say. Declaring a national emergency is "not a suggestion that things have deteriorated in any way. In no way is the virus more severe or more difficult to manage."

Many other articles say the same thing; that's just the first one the author of this article found at the beginning of November 2009 using a Google search.

Be skeptical about flu vaccines. The Atlantic magazine article lists several reasons to be skeptical that flu vaccines have any effect:

1) Healthy, well-educated people are more likely to get flu vaccinations. They have a lower death rate not because they got vaccinated, but because they are healthy. That conclusion is based on the work of Lisa Jackson, research professor in epidemiology at the University of Washington.

2) "In 2004 ... vaccine production fell behind, causing a 40 percent drop in immunization rates. Yet mortality did not rise."

3) "... vaccine “mismatches” occurred in 1968 and 1997: in both years, the vaccine that had been produced in the summer protected against one set of viruses, but come winter, a different set was circulating. In effect, nobody was vaccinated. Yet death rates from all causes, including flu and the various illnesses it can exacerbate, did not budge [did not change]."

4) "In 1989, only 15 percent of people over age 65 in the U.S. and Canada were vaccinated against flu. Today, more than 65 percent are immunized. Yet death rates among the elderly during flu season have increased rather than decreased."

5) A team of researchers who read the studies found that they were almost all "deeply flawed", and "rubbish".

6) "The only way to know if someone has the flu — as opposed to influenza-like illness — is by putting a Q-tip into the patient’s throat or nose and running a test, which simply isn’t done that often."

7) No one knows "how many of the deaths that are blamed on flu were actually caused by a flu virus, because few are confirmed by a laboratory."

8) "As of August 8, only 36 deaths from swine flu had been confirmed among children in the U.S., and the overwhelming majority of those children had multiple, severe health disorders." The understanding of the author of this article is that those were pre-existing severe health disorders.

The U.S. government has in the past been involved in fraud to increase flu vaccine profits. The Atlantic magazine article says, "On November 1, 2005, President George W. Bush pronounced pandemic flu a “danger to our homeland,” and he asked Congress to approve legislation that included $1 billion for the production and stockpiling of antivirals. This was after Congress had already approved $1.8 billion to stockpile Tamiflu for the military, a decision that was made during the tenure of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. (Before joining the Bush Cabinet, Rumsfeld was chairman for four years of Gilead Sciences, the company that holds the patent on Tamiflu, and he held millions of dollars’ worth of stock in the company. According to Roll Call, an online newspaper covering events on Capitol Hill, Rumsfeld says he recused himself from all government decisions involving Tamiflu. Gilead’s stock price rose more than 50 percent in 2005, when the government’s plan was announced.)"

The article says, "As with vaccines, the scientific evidence for Tamiflu and Relenza is thin at best."

The author of this article has read speculation that possibly the vaccine producers are trying to increase their profits in 2010 also, not just in 2009, and that is the reason for much of the confusion in articles about the flu near the end of 2009.

The Atlantic magazine article gives several other examples of medical fraud. The article also mentions the effect of the lack of serious studies: "By being afraid to do the proper studies now, we may be condemning ourselves to using treatments based on illusion and faith rather than sound science."

A CBS News investigation shows the depth of the present fraud: The October 21, 2009 article by CBS News, Swine Flu Cases Overestimated?, says that most people who went to a doctor thinking they had the flu did not.

This frame from a CBS video, H1N1 Cases Overestimated?, gives the statistics for California. Of 13,704 people who a doctor diagnosed as probably flu, 86% did not have flu. Only 2% had 2009 pandemic novel H1N1 swine flu. The report does not say if anyone in that 2% died. (Note that CBS News made the mistake of calling it just "H1N1".)

file:///T:/Flu_CBS_News_Report_about_California_flu_cases.JPG

For several months during 2009, reports about the flu created fear that is extremely profitable for vaccine manufacturers and doctors. CBS News says that the CDC, the U.S. government's Center for Disease Control, refused to release information that would show the exaggeration.

President Obama helped create the exaggerated fear by calling the 2009 flu season an emergency without explaining that there was no real emergency. He didn't explain that the political administration was only allowing expanded preparations. Was he being deliberately misleading to aid the fraud? Almost certainly no. It seems reasonable to guess that President Obama lacked experience of this kind of fraud, and merely accepted recommendations.

It is common that U.S. government leaders make decisions without collecting all the facts. However, they certainly know that if they just accept recommendations they may be allowing someone to use government power to make money. Previous U.S. presidents have deliberately allowed government corruption without caring about the exact nature of the corruption.

Recommendations: Everyone seems to agree with these recommendations concerning flu:

1) Get plenty of sleep. Insufficient sleep reduces the effectiveness of the immune system, making every kind of sickness more likely.

2) Wash your hands, and maybe things your family touches frequently.

Regular soap tears apart the protein outer shell of bacteria, and dissolves the contents, killing all bacteria. Viruses don't have outer shells; they are broken apart and dissolved and thereby destroyed.

Special soap is not necessary. Ads seen on TV about antibacterial spray are fraud. It is not healthy to breathe the mist that the spray creates.

3) Stay away from large groups of people if that is easily possible. The Atlantic magazine article says, ' “There’s no worse place to go than the hospital during flu season,” says Majumdar. Those who don’t have the flu are more likely to catch it there, and those who do will spread it around, he says. “But we don’t tell people this.” '

4) If someone in your family is sick with what seems to be a case of flu, take normal steps to isolate that person. For example, someone sick with flu should not go to school or work.

5) You can't get the flu from eating properly cooked meat. See the article, Flu virus' name also has its dangers. That article also discusses how the name H1N1 was developed, also.

Conclusions: This article does not provide clear guidance about whether a particular person should get vaccinated or not, but hopefully it does help make some of the issues more clear.

The 2009 pandemic novel H1N1 swine flu was sometimes dangerous for the small percentage of people who got it. It caused death in a very small percentage of those who get it. Most of those who died were already sick with another disease or diseases.

The U.S. government under president George W. Bush was apparently involved in very serious fraud. Donald Rumsfeld, who made money from what was apparently immunization fraud, was also involved in lying to start a war between the U.S. and Iraq; the enormous destructiveness of that war is documented in the book Fiasco. That war has resulted in the deaths of more than one million people.

6th edition, November 6, 2009, 12:29 PST
7th edition, February 18, 2012, 04:15 PST, minor corrections, such as in verb tenses, so that this article can be more easily understood 2 years later.