Even though it’s still over 100 degrees in some parts of the country, the media is cranking up to prepare Americans for another scary winter flu season. The World Health Organization (WHO) predicts “an explosion” of flu this year, but they can’t say (or won’t say) exactly what inside information they know that gives them this idea. Don’t you think this is a little strange? In a press conference on August 21st, doctors at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) admitted that they have no way to predict what the flu season will be like, and could not offer any clarification of the WHO’s statement. The fact is that so far the H1N1 strain of flu currently going through Asia and Australia is behaving quite mildly, just like it did this summer in the US.
The terrible predictions for the summer 2009 outbreak of the new H1N1 flu strain got a lot of news coverage. But the brief and mild epidemic didn’t result in widespread suffering and death. It almost seemed that officials at the CDC, the vaccine makers and news stations were disappointed that their story fizzled out with only a few hundred deaths to report. The dwindling number of cases was not enough to keep the nations’ attention.
Informed, health-conscious consumers need to know the facts about the numbers that will be blasted across the media for the next several months.
Influenza is not the same “influenza-like illness”
The CDC likes to advertise the number of so-called Influenza-Like Illnesses, or “ILI”. This describes flu-like symptoms of runny nose and aches and pains with fever that tend to keep a person home from school or work. The vast majority of ILIs are not caused by influenza at all, much less the new H1N1 strain.
Let’s look at the past 53 week’s worth of numbers collected by the CDC from Departments of Health across the country. There were roughly 4,900,000 visits for flu symptoms. Of those, 7,983 were hospitalized with H1N1 infection, which amounts to less than two tenths of one percent (0.16%). Of those sick enough to be hospitalized with H1N1, there were 522 deaths, amounting to a miniscule 0.0001% of people with ILIs. That amounted to about 1 chance in over half a million of dying from H1N1 in the US. The fact is that Americans had about twice the chance of being struck of lightening (1 in 280,000) as dying from H1N1 flu infection in the summer of 2009.
Viral influenza is not the same as bacterial pneumonia
Another number that the CDC strongly advertises in worrisome public service announcements is the total number of deaths during flu season. The number they use is deaths from all pneumonias and influenzas, or “P&I”. Pneumonias are most commonly due to bacterial infections, and are much less commonly due to the influenza virus or other viruses. Typically the number of influenza deaths is one tenth or less the number of pneumonia deaths. So the “P&I” number is mostly bacterial pneumonia! You will not hear this careful differentiation on the news or radio public service announcements. It is profoundly misleading. Not only that, but the P&I number is just guessed at, with a lot of non-scientific “fudge factors” thrown in to make the prediction. When questioned about past years’ predicted P&I figures, the CDC could not exactly say how they came up the numbers.
Vaccination is not the same as immunization
The CDC announced that vaccine makers are testing new shots to figure out the correct dose and whether one or two jabs are needed. The vaccine irritates the body into making specialized proteins (antibodies) that are supposed to fight the new bug. All the drug makers have to show in order to make a claim that the vaccine “works” is whether it causes the subjects to make antibodies. It is important to know that having antibodies does not in any way guarantee that the person will be immune to infection. That’s why it’s called a vaccination program, not an immunization program. If the H1N1 shots don’t work any better than past years’ seasonal flu vaccines, it will not reduce the number of days off work or missed school days for most groups of people.
There are three main reasons why a vaccine wouldn’t protect against illness. The first reason is that the vaccine is made from viruses that are currently in circulation Asia, but the exact virus that hits our shores will have changed by the time it gets here. It may be different enough that the antibodies provoked by the vaccine won’t have any effect on the virus. Second, the amount of antibodies may be not be enough (that why they are testing various doses and one versus two shots). Third, and most important, the vast majority of people who get flu symptoms will be having “influenza-like illness” that is not H1N1 or seasonal influenza at all.
The CDC announced that the new vaccine has caused no serious reactions in adults within 10 to 14 days of the shot, so testing has moved on to children. There are no plans to wait for long term side effects before releasing the vaccine to the public.
These facts about flu and the vaccine should be part of the full information patients are is given, so that smart consumers can make informed decisions about whether or not to get the jab this year.
Keep an eye on this news spot for ongoing articles about the flu vaccine.
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