Annual Flu Deaths: The Big Lie
http://www.thinktwice.com/flu_lie.htm
Every year, just prior to the impending "flu season," the CDC and their acquiescent media pawns terrorize the American public with false claims regarding annual flu deaths. The CDC boldly asserts that 36,000 people die every year from the flu. Such scare tactics are calculated to increase flu vaccine sales. However, according to the CDC's own official records documented in National Vital Statistics Reports, only a few hundred people die from influenza (flu) on an average year. And many of these deaths occur in people with preexisting conditions, weakened immune systems, and the elderly. For example, in 2002, 753 people died from the flu. The year before, in 2001, just 257 people died from the flu. (Fifty-nine percent of these deaths occurred in people 75 years or older; 75 percent occurred in people 55 years or older.) To put these numbers in perspective, 3,454 Americans died from malnutrition in 2001 -- 13 times greater than the number of flu deaths! That same year, there were 4,269 deaths attributed to asthma, a condition some studies have linked to vaccines.
To rationalize this discrepancy between the true number of deaths caused by influenza every year (as documented in the CDC's own National Vital Statistics Reports) and the outrageously exaggerated bogus number of flu deaths promoted by the CDC, officials claim that flu often leads to pneumonia and that many deaths from pneumonia are really deaths caused by flu. Apparently the CDC has a secret formula for estimating how many pneumonia deaths (officially listed in the CDC's own National Vital Statistics Reports as deaths from pneumonia, not flu) are really deaths caused by flu. Adding to the confusion, influenza is caused by a virus; pneumonia is caused by bacteria. The CDC's own website takes great pains to emphasize their differences. More importantly, the CDC has a pneumonia vaccine. So why doesn't the CDC promote their pneumonia vaccine? In 2002, 65,231 people died from pneumonia; in 2001, 61,777 people died from pneumonia. If everyone took a pneumonia vaccine, especially the elderly and others most susceptible to the disease, wouldn't they be protected? Why is the CDC promoting a flu vaccine to protect against pneumonia, especially when one disease is caused by a virus and the other by bacteria? Also, how many people who died from pneumonia received a flu vaccine? How many received a pneumonia vaccine?
There are three main types of flu virus, and each type can mutate, or change, from year to year. Thus, there are literally thousands of possible strains. (Each strain is thoroughly analyzed and given a proper name, often a title associated with the place where it was initially discovered.) Every year health officials produce a new flu vaccine containing three mutated strains of flu virus. To determine which strains to use, officials travel to China at the beginning of the year to assess circulating flu viruses in that region of the world. They try to guess which strains will reach the United States by the end of the year. Production begins, and the new vaccine is usually available by October.
Flu "experts" often guess wrong. For example, in 1994 they predicted that Shangdong, Texas, and Panama strains would be prevalent that year, thus millions of people were vaccinated with a flu shot that contained these viruses. However, when winter arrived, the Johannesburg and Beijing strains of influenza circulated through society. The vaccine was ineffective. This happened again in 1996, and again in 1997. More recently, the vaccine created for the 2003-2004 flu season contained flu strains that did not circulate through society that year. Officials were once again forced to admit that millions of people were vaccinated with an ineffective vaccine. Yet, flu fatalities did not increase during these years. For example, in 1996, 857 people died from the flu; in 1997, 745 people died from the flu -- typical annual numbers.
In 2004, flu vaccine manufacturers were unable to produce enough flu shots to accommodate everyone who wanted a flu vaccine. (Several batches were contaminated and had to be destroyed.) Thus, only half of the population that is normally vaccinated against influenza (approximately 45 million people versus 90 million during an average year) received the vaccine. If influenza is truly a deadly disease, as officials claim, the 2004-2005 flu season should be catastrophic. If, as the CDC claims, 36,000 people die every year from the flu when 90 million people are vaccinated against the disease, how many more will die when only 45 million people are "protected?" I predict that flu fatalities will not increase. In fact, flu (and pneumonia?) fatalities may even decrease during this rare period when the American population is "under-vaccinated" against influenza.
Note: The article above was written in early 2005. On December 10, 2005, the British Medical Journal published a report acknowledging the veracity of this article by substantiating the claim that CDC flu death figures are completely bogus, hyper-inflated to scare the public and sell more flu vaccine.