CBS and The Swine Flu
by Jon Rappoport
October 22, 2009
Get this. The CDC stopped testing people for Swine Flu in JULY. Why? Because CDC assumed there was already an epidemic, and therefore more tests would be waste of time and money.
CBS has been trying to obtain state-by-state numbers for Swine Flu cases compiled, by the CDC, BEFORE the testing was stopped. The CDC has refused to come across with those numbers. It’s been stonewalling CBS for the last three months.
Why? No answer from the CDC. But the truth is obvious. The actual Swine Flu case numbers don’t begin to match the ominous pronouncements about Swine Flu from the CDC, and the case numbers certainly don’t match the general press hysteria and fear-mongering.
But CBS didn’t stop at the stone wall of the CDC. They went to individual states who continued to test patients for Swine Flu after July, and they obtained some VERY interesting figures.
The figures show that all sorts of illness one might blithely assume was Swine Flu was NOT. Not Swine Flu.
In California, based on 13,704 tests for suspected Swine Flu, only 2% of the patients had Swine Flu. That’s right. 12% had some other kind of flu. And a whopping 86% didn’t have flu at all.
What did the 86% have? Who knows? A cold? A brief cough? A case of fear generated by the CDC?
Boom.
In Florida, based on 8,853 tests for suspected Swine Flu, only 17% had Swine Flu. 83% were negative for other flu. So 83% didn’t have ANY kind of flu.
In Alaska, based on 722 tests for suspected Swine Flu, only 11% had Swine Flu. In Georgia, based on 3,117 tests, only 2% had Swine Flu. 2%.
I have to mention that there are at least two problems, even when lab tests for Swine Flu ARE done. First, the so-called Rapid Test, according to the CDC itself, does not definitively identify H1N1. And two—and much more important—none of the usual Swine Flu tests assess the number of Swine Flu viruses in the body of a particular person. Why does that matter? Because you need millions of a particular virus chomping away to even begin to say that virus is contributing to illness.
So we can assume that the very low numbers of actual Swine Flu cases these states are reporting are even lower. Much lower.
The degree of lying and obfuscation here is huge. The CDC has been caught with its pants down around its ankles. The “epidemic” is at best a trickle. The game is over.
But of course the hysteria will continue. The CDC will ignore these revelations. The vaccine campaign will continue. The utter bullshit will keep piling higher and higher. The drug companies will keep ringing up the cash register.
President Obama, whose cabinet post, Health and Human Services, is in charge of the CDC, will perhaps not even know what is going on. If he does figure it out, he’ll do nothing. The train has already left the station. It’s too late to suffer the level of executive embarrassment the truth would deliver.
Remember this moment. Remember it, because you know that, in the future, the CDC will be making announcements about other diseases. You’ll be able to muster the amount of gargantuan doubt that the CDC deserves. Unless you like being fooled. Unless you like the fear. Unless you like having something, anything to believe in, regardless of the track record.
Here is the CBS story:
Swine Flu Cases Overestimated?
CBS News Exclusive: Study Of State Results Finds H1N1 Not As Prevalent As Feared
by Sharyl Attkisson
October 21, 2009
If you’ve been diagnosed “probable” or “presumed” 2009 H1N1 or “swine flu” in recent months, you may be surprised to know this: odds are you didn’t have H1N1 flu.
In fact, you probably didn’t have flu at all. That’s according to state-by-state test results obtained in a three-month-long CBS News investigation.
The ramifications of this finding are important. According to the Center for Disease Control, CDC, and Britain’s National Health Service, once you have H1N1 flu, you’re immune from future outbreaks of the same virus. Those who think they’ve had H1N1 flu — but haven’t — might mistakenly presume they’re immune. As a result, they might skip taking a vaccine that could help them, and expose themselves to others with H1N1 flu under the mistaken belief they won’t catch it. Parents might not keep sick children home from school, mistakenly believing they’ve already had H1N1 flu.
Why the uncertainty about who has and who hasn’t had H1N1 flu?
In late July, the CDC abruptly advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu, and stopped counting individual cases. The rationale given for the CDC guidance to forego testing and tracking individual cases was: why waste resources testing for H1N1 flu when the government has already confirmed there’s an epidemic?
Some public health officials privately disagreed with the decision to stop testing and counting, telling CBS News that continued tracking of this new and possibly changing virus was important because H1N1 has a different epidemiology, affects younger people more than seasonal flu and has been shown to have a higher case fatality rate than other flu virus strains.
CBS News learned that the decision to stop counting H1N1 flu cases was made so hastily that states weren’t given the opportunity to provide input. Instead, on July 24, the Council for State and Territorial Epidemiologists, CSTE, issued the following notice to state public health officials on behalf of the CDC:
“Attached are the Q&As that will be posted on the CDC website tomorrow explaining why CDC is no longer reporting case counts for novel H1N1. CDC would have liked to have run these by you for input but unfortunately there was not enough time before these needed to be posted (emphasis added).”
On Aug. 4, CBS News asked the CDC for e-mail communications to states and other documents regarding the guidance and its rationale. When CDC did not provide us with the documents, such as state-by-state numbers prior to halting testing and tracking, we filed a Freedom of Information request with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). More than two months later, the request has not been fulfilled.
We asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.
It’s unknown what patients who tested negative for flu were actually afflicted with since the illness was not otherwise determined. Health experts say it’s assumed the patients had some sort of cold or upper respiratory infection that is just not influenza.
With most cases diagnosed solely on symptoms and risk factors, the H1N1 flu epidemic may seem worse than it is. For example, on Sept. 22, this alarming headline came from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.: “H1N1 Flu Infects Over 250 Georgetown Students.”
H1N1 flu can be deadly and an outbreak of 250 students would be an especially troubling cluster. However, the number of sick students came not from lab-confirmed tests but from “estimates” made by counting “students who went to the Student Health Center with flu symptoms, students who called the H1N1 hotline or the Health Center’s doctor-on-call, and students who went to the hospital’s emergency room.”
Without lab testing, it’s impossible to know how many of the students actually had H1N1 flu. But the statistical trend indicates it was likely much fewer than 250.
CDC continues to monitor flu in general and H1N1 through “sentinels,” which basically act as spot-checks to detect trends around the nation. But at least one state, California, has found value in tracking H1N1 flu in greater detail.
“What we are doing is much more detailed and expensive than what CDC wants,” said Dr. Bela Matyas, California’s Acting Chief of Emergency Preparedness and Response. “We’re gathering data better to answer how severe is the illness. With CDC’s fallback position, there are so many uncertainties with who’s being counted, it’s hard to know how much we’re seeing is due to H1N1 flu rather than a mix of influenza diseases generally. We can tell that apart but they can’t.”
After our conversation with Dr. Matyas, public affairs officials with the California Department of Public Health emphasized to CBS News that they support CDC policy to stop counting individual cases, maintaining that the state has the resources to gather more specific testing data than the CDC.
Because of the uncertainties, the CDC advises even those who were told they had H1N1 to get vaccinated unless they had lab confirmation. “Persons who are uncertain about how they were diagnosed should get the 2009 H1N1 vaccine.”
That’s unwelcome news for a Marietta, Georgia mom whose two children were diagnosed with “probable” H1N1 flu over the summer. She hoped that would mean they wouldn’t need the hastily developed H1N1 flu vaccine. However, since their cases were never confirmed with lab tests, the CDC advises they get the vaccine. “I wish they had tested and that I knew for sure whether they had it. I’m not anxious to give them an experimental vaccine if they don’t need it.”
Speaking to CBS’ “60 Minutes,” CDC Director Dr. Frieden said he has confidence that the vaccine will be safe and effective: “We’re confident it will be effective we have every reason to believe that it will be safe.”
However, the CDC recommendation for those who had “probable” or “presumed” H1N1 flu to go ahead and get vaccinated anyway means the relatively small proportion of those who actually did have H1N1 flu will be getting the vaccine unnecessarily. This exposes them to rare but significant side effects, such as paralysis from Guillain-Barre syndrome.
It also uses up vaccine, which is said to be in short supply. The CDC was hoping to have shipped 40 million doses by the end of October, but only about 30 million doses will be available this month.
The CDC did not response to questions from CBS News for this report.
End of CBS article.
(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, The Matrix Revealed, click here.)
Jon Rappoport
The author of three explosive collections, THE MATRIX REVEALED, EXIT FROM THE MATRIX, and POWER OUTSIDE THE MATRIX, Jon was a candidate for a US Congressional seat in the 29th District of California. He maintains a consulting practice for private clients, the purpose of which is the expansion of personal creative power. Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, he has worked as an investigative reporter for 30 years, writing articles on politics, medicine, and health for CBS Healthwatch, LA Weekly, Spin Magazine, Stern, and other newspapers and magazines in the US and Europe. Jon has delivered lectures and seminars on global politics, health, logic, and creative power to audiences around the world. You can sign up for his free NoMoreFakeNews emails here or his free OutsideTheRealityMachine emails here.