eagleye13 Loc: Fl

The CDC’s Influenza Math Doesn’t Add Up: Exaggerating the Death Toll to Sell Flu Shots
http://republicbroadcasting.org/news/the-cdcs-influenza-math-doesnt-add-up-exaggerating-the-death-toll-to-sell-flu-shots/

Every year at about this time, public health officials and their media megaphones start up the drumbeat to encourage everyone (including half-year-old infants, pregnant women and the invalid elderly) to get a flu shot. Never mind that more often than not the vaccines don’t work, and sometimes even increase the risk of getting sick.

To buttress their alarmist message for 2018-2019, representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other health agencies held a press conference and issued a press release on September 27, citing a particularly “record-breaking” (though unsubstantiated) 80,000 flu deaths last year. Having “medical experts and public health authorities publicly…state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes)” is part and parcel of the CDC’s documented playbook for “fostering public interest and high…demand” for flu shots. CDC’s media relations experts frankly admit that “framing” the current flu season as “more severe than last or past years” or more “deadly” is a highly effective strategy for garnering strong interest and attention from both the media and the public.

If accurate, 80,000 deaths would represent an enormous (and mystifying) one-year jump—tens of thousands more flu deaths compared to the already inflated numbers presented for 2016 (and every prior year).

Peter Doshi (associate editor at The BMJ and a MIT graduate) has criticized the CDC’s “aggressive” promotion of flu shots, noting that although the annual public health campaigns deliver a “who-in-their-right-mind-could-possibly-disagree message,” the “rhetoric of science” trotted out each year by public health officials has a “shaky scientific basis.” Viewed within the context of Doshi’s remarks, the CDC’s high-flying flu numbers for 2017-2018 raise a number of questions. If accurate, 80,000 deaths would represent an enormous (and mystifying) one-year jump—tens of thousands more flu deaths compared to the already inflated numbers presented for 2016 (and every prior year). Moreover, assuming a roughly six-month season for peak flu activity, the 80,000 figure would translate to an average of over 13,300 deaths per month—something that no newspaper last year came close to reporting.

The CDC’s statistics are impervious to independent verification because they remain, thus far, unpublished—despite the agency’s pledge on its website to base its public health pronouncements on high-quality data derived openly and objectively. Could the CDC’s disappointment with influenza vaccination coverage—which lags far behind the agency’s target of 80%—have anything to do with the opacity of the flu data being used to peddle the unpopular and ineffective vaccines?

Fudging facts

There are a variety of reasons to question the precision with which the CDC likes to imbue its flu statistics. First, although the CDC states that it conducts influenza mortality surveillance with its partner agencies, there is no actual requirement for U.S. states to report adult flu deaths to the CDC. (In public health parlance, adult influenza deaths are not “reportable” or “nationally notifiable.”) In fact, the only “flu-associated deaths” that the CDC requires states and other jurisdictions to report are deaths in children—180 last year.

…when actual death certificates are tallied, influenza deaths on average are little more than 1,000 yearly.

How did the CDC reach its as-yet-unpublished conclusion—widely shared with the media—that 79,820 American adults in addition to 180 children died from the flu in 2017-2018? The agency states that it relies on death certificate data. However, members of the Cochrane research community have observed that “when actual death certificates are tallied, influenza deaths on average are little more than 1,000 yearly.”

Other knowledgeable individuals have also noted that the death records system in the U.S. is subjective, incomplete and politicized, and have suggested that citizens should adopt a “healthy skepticism about even the most accepted, mainstream, nationally reported CDC or other ‘scientific’ statistics.” This skepticism may be especially warranted for the influenza stats, which are so inextricably intertwined with the CDC’s vaccination agenda that the statistical techniques and assumptions that the agency uses focus specifically on “project[ing] the burden of influenza that would have occurred in the absence of vaccination.”

skepticism may be especially warranted for the influenza stats, which are so inetricably intertwined with the CDC’s vaccination agenda.

Notwithstanding its incessant use of influenza statistics to justify its flu vaccine policies, the CDC tries to have it both ways, cautioning that because “influenza activity reporting…is voluntary,” influenza surveillance in the U.S. “cannot be used to ascertain how many people have become ill with influenza during the influenza season.” A larger problem is that the vital statistics that form the basis of the CDC’s surveillance data conflate deaths from pneumonia and influenza (P&I). The CDC concedes that this conflation complicates the challenge of specifically estimating flu deaths:

The system “tracks the proportion of death certificates processed that list pneumonia or influenza as the underlying or contributing cause of death. This system…does not provide an exact number of how many people died from flu” [emphasis added].

Curiously, the CDC presented its cause-of-death data slightly differently prior to 2015. Through 2014, the agency’s annual National Vital Statistics Reports included tables showing influenza deaths and pneumonia deaths as separate line items. Those reports made it abundantly clear that pneumonia deaths (at least as transmitted by death certificates) consistently and dramatically outstripped influenza deaths. The table below illustrates this pattern for 2012-2014.....

Comment Loc: California

I have gotten a flu shot for the past 10 years. I haven't had the flu in 10 years. I got this years shot 2 days past. I don't care what anyone thinks. I will get a flu shot for the remainder of my time on Earth.

pafret Loc: Northeast

Why did you switch back? I sometimes get one and sometimes I don't. No difference, still "catch cold" from time to time, with or without the shot.

RoyinNC

I have never taken the flu shot and don't intend to. I've been retired for 6 years and haven't had a cold in that period, either.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

What is really bad is the amount of vaccines they push on babies and young children.

maryjane

I, also, have never had a flu shot. I am 80 and have had the flu maybe 3 or 4 times over my life, just aching, feeling miserable for a few days. I get a cold maybe every 2-3 years for a few days. But, I ask, so what? The American people have become such weak specimens and refuse to tolerate the slightest discomfort. Tummy hurts a little, take a pill. Headache, take a pill. Mostly, such common everyday aches will go away without any medication if just given a wee bit of time. But our instant gratification society can't wait 30 minutes, their pain is unbearable and must end now. If any true catastrophic event ever hits our nation, I shudder to imagine the reaction of most foolish Americans.

maryjane

Well, I am all for vaccines that have eradicated dangerous diseases like polio. As a child, before vaccines, I, along with other kids, managed to survive measles, mumps, shopping cough and can't remember ever hearing of a kid dying from these. Of course, communication then was far from instant, so maybe some did. Many did die, or worse, from polio, but then along came the vaccine. I, of course, still have the "scar" from my polio shot. BUT, when I had children, I must admit to being glad they didn't have to suffer from any of those "childhood" diseases. Today, schools require proof of certain vaccinations before starting pre-school or kindergarten. To vaccinate or not is a tough question, because a child not vaccinated becomes a danger to children too young to be vaccinated simply because all those childhood diseases were so contagious.

Red Onion Rip Loc: Oklahoma

I quit taking the flu vaccine 15 years ago and haven't had the flu since. My doctor's PA gets all over me every year to get both the flu and pneumonia vaccines, but I tell her she is just wasting her time. I haven't had a cold in about 3 or 4 years and then it wasn't a bad one. I'm diabetic, have congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high triglycerides, essential tremor and am recovering from prostate cancer. They implanted 110 radioactive Palladium103 seeds in my prostate February 22nd which took care of the cancer. All of the rest of that stuff I control with meds and I'm trying to lose weight to help control the diabetes. I used to be an instructor at the USPS NCED in Norman, OK until I retired January 25th, 2012. We had students coming in from all of the 50 states and Puerto Rico so we had to contend with every disease known to man. Seemed like someone in the class was always sick with something. Back then I took a lot of vitamins to keep my immune system built up which seemed to work.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

I am not against all vaccines, especially Polio, although it almost gave me polio in the fifties. I had to fight it off.

But Flu vaccines are another story.
There is evidence that vaccines cause many other problems
Autism?

maryjane

Oh, I agree about the flu vaccine and feel the same way about many medications. I often think the pharmaceutical companies are behind all the constant ads for medications, backed up cooperating doctors. Remember when the meds for chlorestoral (misspelled) and, can't remember but there was another med for something else that had never been an issue before, anyway, remember when these came out and we're constantly pushed on TV? I never paid much attention because I have never taken meds unless absolutely necessary for a short time. I, then, had four sisters whosee doctors immediately put them on both these meds. (They were not the type to ever question anything the doctor said.) But I remember, after a couple of years taking these meds, two of the sisters began to have some problems, problems that, eventually, a doctor attributed to these meds. As a result, they all four stopped both meds, but I well remember them all fussing at me and telling me I should be taking those meds. I know I have been very fortunate, health-wise, (80 yrs now), but I have always believed people, especially the elderly, take entirely too much medication, even sometimes taking two that counteract each other. And based on my own few experiences, I blame most of this on doctors. It always seems to me that, as soon as you begin to try explaining why you are there, the doctor starts writing out prescriptions and/or making appointments for you to see some specialist. I do not view doctors as at all infallible and believe they should do better jobs instead of pushing pills. Not so long ago, I read a lengthy article about medical schools/training and how they have changed. It was scary, so I am doubly thankful for my good health.

Red Onion Rip Loc: Oklahoma

Today, a lot of doctors get kickbacks and perks from Big Pharma reps who visit their offices at least once a week. They give them free samples to give their patients and I've even seen the reps bring lunch in for everyone in the office. And, of course, all the female reps look like college cheerleaders or beauty queens. I think if Trump ever gets a replacement for Obama Care, they should outlaw the pharma reps from visiting doctor's offices. Maybe that would help bring down the cost of drugs. I do take a lot of meds for my various illnesses and they keep me fairly healthy (73 now), but I'm trying to lose weight so I can get off of some of the meds. I seem to a rather strong immune system because I rarely get sick. I don't like going to the doctor, but have to go every 4 months for my diabetes. It seems like the doctor's office or a hospital is the best place to catch any kind of disease since that is usually what everyone else is there for, because THEY are sick.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

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