>>>>>Harvard says oversold :
>>>>>http://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFluNews/swine-flu-blown-proportion/story?id=9270149&cid=yahoo_pitchlist
>>>>>
>>>>>The Council of Europe says fraud :
>>>>>The Council of Europe will launch a probe into pharmaceutical companies after reports that vaccine manufacturers pressured the World Health Organization into declaring swine flu pandemic seeking increase in profits.
>>>>>http://rt.com/Top_News/2010-01-13/swine-flu-false-pandemic.html
>>>>>
>>>>>I say it was an oversold fear-mongering fraud on the same level as Y2K, bird flu, west nile and global warming.
>>>>>
>>>>>Grady says? ;)
>>>>
>>>>I'd say we don't know yet and won't until after we see whether it comes back again, more virulent.
>>>>
>>>>Tamar
>>>
>>>At what point do we declare it a hyped up fraud?
>>>
>>>It has been demonstrated that the numbers of diagnosed H1N1cases cannot be trusted due to faulty attribution prior to lab testing and the number of deaths worldwide is roughly 1/3 of the seasonal flu deaths in the US in a single year.
>>>
>>>The hype from media to WHO to the CDC to the arm-crook coughing head of HHS has been unrelenting and panic inducing yet the actual threat has yet to materialize on anything close to a seasonal scale.
>>>
>>>I suppose we could wait for the "third wave" and see... ;)
>>
>>Regardless of the deemed "severity" of the pandemic, I think it's been a valuable test. It's the first time in a long time national governments have mobilised to create and roll out a new vaccine in a short time frame. It has led to new insights into vaccine production and distribution.
>>
>>In a way, H1N1 has been almost an ideal test case - potentially serious enough to be taken seriously, without actually killing scads of people. An effective drill, is one way to look at it.
>>
>>I agree that there's some risk of "crying wolf" with too many incidents like this. But I think calling it a "fraud" is a bit harsh.
>
>There has been outright fraud exposed throughout this process. Starting with calling it "swine" flu. It's not. Perpetuating the misdiagnosis since first exposed in the Mexican outbreak is fraudulent. Second, there are plenty of reports, studies and anecdotal examples of misdiagnosis, be they innocent, precautionary or outright number pumping. Over-the-phone diagnosis of H1N1 is an outrageous example of malpractice as we now know that a minor percentage of diagnosed cases, once lab tested, are actually H1N1. Third, the over-sensationalism from media, health organizations and government authorities reached panic inducing level where people were literally fighting to get limited supplies of vaccine. Warning and preparation should be delivered in measured levels as precautionary warnings are just that, precautionary. The fevered (pun intended) pitch of mass reporting of violent deaths which amount to a fraction of actual cases, let alone a fraction of what the seasonal flu accounts for is panic inducing. The fact that these reports from media, health organizations and government authorities often carried a forceful suggestion to get immunized with a quickly produced, thus by definition, lightly tested vaccine is reckless. Mandating such vaccinations, as some schools and hospitals attempted to do is authoritarian and dangerous.
>
>From the beginning the threat was overstated, just as with West Nile and Bird Flu yet the degree was much louder this time. There was absolutely no reason to stir up this much attention until real evidence of something greater than the seasonal flu emerged. The process of rolling out the vaccine could've occurred without panicking the populace in making hasty health related decisions. We now await the fallout from those who've served as guinea pigs. Hopefully, the vaccine will prove safe, history suggests otherwise.

We may have different ideas about the definition of "fraud": mine is "fraud is an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual." Can you give me any examples of what I call fraud? The media reported every sniffle as if it were the end of the world, but that's to be expected with them anyways, so they don't count.

"People were literally fighting to get limited supplies of vaccine": got a link for that? I couldn't find one with a couple of Google searches.

"From the beginning the threat was overstated, just as with West Nile and Bird Flu yet the degree was much louder this time. There was absolutely no reason to stir up this much attention until real evidence of something greater than the seasonal flu emerged." Well, hindsight has 20/20 vision. From the beginning, no-one had any idea if the threat was overstated or not. The best estimate from professionals on the front line is that it could be a serious threat.

With that in mind, the vaccine-production effort went into maximum overdrive. What's really important to understand is that even with that maximum effort, the vaccine actually reached the population arguably too late for maximum effectiveness i.e. after the start of the "second wave". So, if you say you wouldn't get started on vaccine production until you were "sure" it was a major problem, that would make vaccine availability that much later. I suppose if H1N1 had had a high mortality rate, then that would make any such "cautious delays", and the resultant extra deaths, fraudulent understatement, right?

We purposely put trained professionals in positions of authority precisely so that when situations like this arise, they can act in our interests. They don't have the luxury of perfect information and 20/20 hindsight, they have to work with what they have, in real-time. To call their motivations fraudulent is a pretty heinous accusation.