pandemic panic

My article: “Purveying Pig Flu Panic at the Post”

by Michael Fumento on June 14, 2010

in Health and Illness

“Panic is what we want,” Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum wrote last May of swine flu. “Panic is good,” she said, also labeling the disease a “pandemic” five weeks before the World Health Organization (WHO) did.

Yet flu season is now officially over and we’ve had about 12,500 total flu deaths, or a third the usual number according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates.

Still, say what you will about the Post Opinions page coverage of swine flu, it was consistent. It kept on promoting panic, notwithstanding they knew they were wrong, that indeed one of their contributors was outright lying. I know because I repeatedly kept them informed. Read my article about those estimates of 207,000 American dead and nine million worldwide that Opinions foisted on us–in the name of spreading panic.

“No More Crying ’Spanish Flu’,” my article in Forbes

by Michael Fumento on May 21, 2010

in Health and Illness

What’s that? Your throat feels sore? You’re sniffling and sneezing? Bit achy?

IT’S THE RETURN OF THE SPANISH FLU!

Okay, that’s satire–but not by much. Since 1990, every time some new viral pathogen comes along that grabs the media’s attention, we hear it may be the Second Coming of a pandemic that killed about 50 million worldwide and 675,000 Americans–to 175 million globally and 2 million Americans.”

First, it was SARS in 1993. It ended up killing 774 people worldwide and no Americans. Which didn’t stop the New York Times from writing 1,000 articles about it. NONE of which said, “We wuz wrong.”

Then it was avian flu. It was supposed to go pandemic and kill literally as much as half the world’s population. But nobody but me pointed out it’s been circulating since 1959, so why should it suddenly go pandemic? In any case, it didn’t and cases peaked a few years ago.

And then, of course, it was swine flu. And here’s where you see that my satire was barely off the mark. A year ago both the WHO and the UN said swine flu might become another Spanish flu because – ready? – they both started off mild. So if swine flu had started off severely then it would have been more reassuring? (The inset image, incidentally, of an overflow Spanish flu ward, was taken from an article on SWINE flu.)

But there will NEVER be another Spanish flu again, and I explain why. And you’ll be very interested. So read about it here.

The NEW reason for fomenting pig flu panic – “Use up those vaccines!”

by Michael Fumento on May 4, 2010

in Health and Illness, Regulation

According to Reuters, the U.S. has 71 million unused H1N1 swine flu vaccine doses. And damned if it isn’t determined to use up every last one, in order to reduce the embarrassment of throwing away so much of the expensive stuff.

States and other providers should hang on to the vaccine and continue to offer them, says HHS spokesman Bill Hall. After all, points out Reuters, “H1N1 swine flu is still technically causing a pandemic and health officials say anyone who has not been vaccinated should still try, in case it causes a third wave of serious disease.”

Yes, “technically,” because after what we’ve seen from the WHO, which changed the definition of “pandemic” in order to make the mildest flu strain in decades rank right up there with Spanish flu, technically they can do everything they want.

Here are some facts instead. The CDC reports that last week it had two positive infections of all strains of flu, down from 2,336 at height of the epidemic. Flu season officially ends May 15 and it takes about two weeks to build up immunity. So anybody getting the shot today . . . And yet, there’s a big red sign at my pharmacist admonishing people to get their swine flu vaccines and in several states that I know of health departments are running TV commercials to continue to scare people into using up those vaccines.

En autre mots, instead of dumping vaccine into landfills they’re trying to dump them into our arms!

Finally, there will be a third wave. It will start when cold season arrives. And it will be almost entirely piggy flu. You see, swine flu now is seasonal flu. Which is wonderful as long as it lasts because it’s so very mild.

Hate mail from an M.D. regarding my AOL News piece, “Did WHO Knowingly Hype Swine Flu?”

by Michael Fumento on April 19, 2010 · 3 comments

in Health and Illness

Dear Mr. Fumento:

Well, if you wish to destroy the credibility of the WHO, publishing a few more articles like the most recent one Did WHO Knowingly Hype Swine Flu?”] should be quite a help.

As an individual who happens to know quite a bit about medicine, influenza, public health and pandemic influenza planning and response, my opinion (which sadly won’t be published and broadcast to the world) is that you don’t know what you are talking about. Understandable since you have, apparently, absolutely no background in medicine or public health.

Quite clearly, if the WHO had underplayed the threat and lives had been lost that, in your opinion, could have been saved, you would now be savaging the WHO for underplaying the threat. Apparently, in the fantasy world you inhabit, complete accuracy in predicting the future is not only possible, but required. Next time, I will know better than to read an article with your byline.

David Buhner MD MS

Dear Dr. Buhner:

Let me try to understand this. The WHO changes the definition of “pandemic” so that it can label as such a strain that’s clearly vastly milder than seasonal flu. It then proceeds to lie repeatedly about having changed the definition, notwithstanding that both versions remain on its Web site. But in pointing this out, *I* am the bad guy; I’m the one destroying the WHO’s credibility. The WHO played no role in all this.
Ever hear the expression about shooting the messenger?

Actually, I’ve been publishing on medicine and public health for 23 years so the ad hominem doesn’t go too far. I also don’t accept another logical fallacy you’ve offered, that of “black and white.” It is not the case that the WHO must either grossly overstate the threat of a contagion in order to prevent understating it. A key paragraph in my article is this:

It’s not as if the WHO knew nothing about the mildness of H1N1 early on. I wrote about it on May 1, subsequently publishing 14 articles in major publications on what I immediately dubbed hysteria. If I knew better, there’s no reason the WHO shouldn’t have known better.

Why did a single journalist, albeit one with a very strong medicine and public health background, with no budget, know so much so early that the WHO apparently did not? You have the choice of ignorance or intent. Insofar as my piece also contained strong evidence of intent, that would be the logical choice.

Sincerely,
Michael Fumento

Swine flu and heterosexual AIDS

by Michael Fumento on February 15, 2010

in Health and Illness

About 57 million Americans, or something less than a fifth of the population, have contracted swine flu since April, the CDC says, of whom it estimates about 11,690 have died.

Never mind that data from other countries like France and Japan indicate the ratio of deaths to infections is probably much lower than CDC
assumes and therefore that 11,690 figure is probably far too high. It could be just 5,000 or even lower. It remains that this same agency says that on average 36,000 Americans a year die of regular old garden variety seasonal flu.

Anyway you figure it, as I’ve repeatedly written, and as the rest of the U.S. media have repeatedly not written – thereby giving the U.S. policy makers and the World Health Organization (WHO) free rein – swine flu is so mild that it acts as an inoculation and actually prevents a lot of deaths. In early October I noted we saw that pattern in New Zealand and Australia, where they had their flu seasons before we did and even had no swine flu vaccine, and therefore we would see it here.

That despite apocalyptic estimates of 30,000 to 90,000, according to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology or "89,000 to 207,000," according to a Washington Post op-ed by flu book author John Barry. (Not incidentally, the Post has repeatedly turned down anti-hysteria pieces of mine that were good enough to appear in other prestigious publications.)

In the meantime, the federal government has probably spent over $10 billion "fighting" the “roaring razorback” that proved to be a pathetic piglet, and a lot of people have been scared out of their wits. Around the world, other governments did likewise after the WHO declared its phony pandemic in an effort to cover for yet another hysteria that it fomented, that of avian flu.

That’s not to mention Secretary-General Margaret Chandler’s invocation to her minions to use the swine flu scare to convince governments that "changes in the functioning of the global economy" are needed to "distribute wealth on the basis of" values "like community, solidarity, equity and social justice."

Why fight disease when you can fight capitalism?

Yet as with the first phony epidemic I began writing about, heterosexual AIDS way back in 1987, these data were out there all along for anybody to pick up and relate. The Internet has made it all the easier. Nobody sent me anything in a plain brown envelope. There was no “Deep Throat” informant and none required. Likewise with other phony infectious disease scares I’ve written about, including "pandemic Ebolavirus," SARS, and avian flu. Twenty-two years on and it’s the same old thing.

Am I a reincarnation of Nostradamus who, inexplicably rather than making billions playing the lottery, is doing work that doesn’t begin to cover his mortgage payments? Or is there something horribly, horribly wrong with our media? And for you "new media" fans, sorry but those teeming millions of bloggers missed the boat as well.

Flu Report Feb. 12 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing

by Michael Fumento on February 12, 2010 · 2 comments

in Health and Illness

As the CDC’s FluView Web site puts it, “During the week of January 31 – February 6, 2010, most key flu indicators remained about the same as during the previous week.”

Tellingly, Dr. Anne Schuchat, who heads the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in warning against complacency, declared “Individual cases of H1N1 continue to occur.” Hello? At the height of flu season you’re talking about “individual cases” occurring?

Again, the only area of interest is to what extent has swine flu swept aside the vastly more severe seasonal flu. Again, at the height of flu season, CDC labs have only received two flu samples that might not be swine flu.

Also in the news, CNN reports Schuchat “sounded pleased” that a CDC survey estimates 23.4 percent of the population have received the swine flu vaccine, including slightly over a third of children under age 18.

That’s pleasing? Lady, that’s a failure. Part of it is the government’s fault and part is that despite government-fomented hysteria most Americans just aren’t taking this thing too seriously, and rightly so.

Yes, WHO faked a pandemic and is now lying about it, my Forbes article

by Michael Fumento on February 6, 2010

in Health and Illness

The World Health Organization has suddenly gone from crying “The sky is falling!” like a cackling Chicken Little to squealing like a stuck pig. The reason: charges that the agency deliberately fomented swine flu hysteria. “The world is going through a real pandemic. The description of it as a fake is wrong and irresponsible,” the agency claims on its Web site.

But I’ve been documenting the hoax since before a pandemic was declared, back when the WHO was just posturing about a proclamation.

I first showed that swine flu was exceptionally mild, when by definition flu pandemics had to be severe. I later showed that the WHO changed the definition to match swine flu, which required it to eliminate severity as a factor. That in turn makes the definition of “flu pandemic” absolutely worthless.

I also explained why the WHO did it. That it wasn’t mere bureaucratic turf-enlarging, but rather first an effort to cover up yet another WHO hysteria, over avian flu, and then an attempt to bring “social justice” to the world and redistribute wealth between nations. That from the very mouth of its secretary general!

Now with a European watchdog group calling hearings on what it’s labeled a “false pandemic,” the WHO is claiming 1) that it didn’t change the definition, and 2) that there was never a definition that required severity.

These are incredibly bold lies, given that you can find the old definition on the Web and people like me tell you right where to go to find it. Like here.

My Forbes piece, “Why The WHO Faked A Pandemic,” has a video clip of WHO swine flu “czar” Keiji Fukuda (see picture) lying through his teeth, along with another link to written testimony in which he lies about a different aspect.

The European group calls the WHO’s actions “one of the greatest medicine scandals of the century.” Just so, and the more the WHO does it’s CYA routine, the worse it gets. Pinocchio’s nose is already poking out the window.

Flu Report Feb. 5 – What Swine Flu ISN’T Doing

by Michael Fumento on February 5, 2010 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness

Here’s an amazing fact. Traditionally flu season peaks in mid-February. Essentially now. Yet in mid-October CDC labs reported 11,908 positive flu samples. This past week they reported only 119, in turn fewer than the week before! NO states are reporting widespread flu activity.

There in a nutshell is your awful swine flu epidemic everybody warned of.

As I’ve repeatedly written, as was the case in Australia and New Zealand, the milder swine flu has simply brushed aside the far deadlier seasonal flu. In essence, swine flu has become our seasonal flu. And whether the health authorities end up admitting it or not, as was the case in Australia and New Zealand where they had NO swine flu vaccine, a lot fewer of us are going to die this year as a result.

John Stossel salutes my swine flu work

by Michael Fumento on January 30, 2010 · 1 comment

in Health and Illness

[Herewith his blog for Fox Business, titled "Swine Flu Hysteria." I agree with him about the pharmaceutical companies. As I've written elsewhere, in addition to the usual bureaucratic desire for growth in power and budget, the WHO was seeking to cover its tracks for an earlier hysteria - that of avian flu. Moreover, it has been remarkably open (Even if I'm the only one to report on it) about seeking to exploit swine flu to engineer hard-left political change including the redistribution of wealth between countries and instituting "social justice."]

“The Official Word to All, Get a Swine Flu Vaccination Now” was the New York Times headline earlier this month. That followed months of headlines like:

“Swine flu has killed 540 kids, sickened 22 million Americans” (USA Today)

“U.S. prepares for possible swine flu epidemic as global cases rise” (CNN)

But Michael Fumento writes that the facts on swine flu hardly live up to the months of hype.

Hidden within the latest edition of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
FluView was this sentence: “The proportion of deaths attributed to pneumonia and influenza was below the epidemic threshold”…

You may recall all those additional deaths we were supposed to suffer as a result of swine flu – 30,000 to 90,000, according to the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (a number I previously disputed)…

But like New Zealand and Australia, the United States can actually expect considerably fewer overall flu deaths because of the swine flu…

Only 161 new infections were reported to CDC-monitored labs last week, compared to 11,470 at the epidemic’s mid-October peak.

One reason that there are fewer deaths — a reason little reported by the overheated media — is that most swine flu is milder than seasonal flu. The Council of Europe now wants an investigation of the United Nation’s World Health Organization. It claims WHO, in league with pharmaceutical companies, declared swine flu a pandemic to sell vaccine. The WHO denies the accusation, saying the pandemic is not over.

I doubt that WHO bureaucrats hype swine flu to promote pharmaceutical companies. I suspect that they do it because it inflates their self-worth.

After all the media coverage, scaring us to death, now we’ll see if there are stories that inform us of how deadly swine flu really turned out to be.

Flu Update Jan. 29: What Swine Flu ISN’t Doing

by Michael Fumento on January 29, 2010

in Health and Illness

Deaths down, hospitalizations down, infections reported to CDC-surveillance labs down. Again the usual disclaimer that this probably represents a time lag in reporting and this are probably all actually the same as the week before. The only aspect of interest again is that of 164 positive samples those labs have received, only two clearly were not swine flu. So here we are, approaching what is the peak of the annual flu season (mid-February) and it does appear that, as was the case in Australia and New Zealand, the milder swine flu has simply brushed aside the far deadlier seasonal flu. In essence, swine flu has become our seasonal flu. And a lot fewer of us are going to die this year as a result.

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