Did WHO Cry H1N1 Wolf?

[Indy Coug]

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2...threat/?hpt=C2

Umm..... yes they absolutely did.

[Babs]

I swear if I had had to hear one more friend gush about oh-my-god-my-family's-got-the-swine-flu I thought I was going to pull my hair out.

[TheAzzuri]

http://pagingdrgupta.blogs.cnn.com/2...threat/?hpt=C2

Umm..... yes they absolutely did.

Yes and no. It took just a couple of weeks for it to go global. That right there is reason for some alarm.The virulence was overstated, to be sure. But to extent, even that was just luck.

Clearly the organization is not without flaws, but they are between a rock and hard place in these situations.

[RC Vikings]

Can you imagine if they found out that the drug companies were behind it. I bet the guy who thought of it sold alarm systems to get through college.

[RobinFinderson]

Can you imagine if they found out that the drug companies were behind it. I bet the guy who thought of it sold alarm systems to get through college.

It would be business as usual for capitalists.

[statman]

Yes and no. It took just a couple of weeks for it to go global. That right there is reason for some alarm.The virulence was overstated, to be sure. But to extent, even that was just luck.

Clearly the organization is not without flaws, but they are between a rock and hard place in these situations.

Bingo.

There was reason for alarm. H1N1 clearly WAS a virulent strain in that it spread quickly. It also had the shock-and-awe factor in that while it was generally a less serious strain in terms of overall death rate (ie it didn't kill a lot of old people - probably because 1) it simply wasn't that strong virus, and 2) it was closely related to two previous swine flu strains that older individuals would likely have been exposed to in the 50s and the 70s, and they had some resistance to it), it did seem to randomly kill young people who would usually not be too adversely affected by a normal flu strain. Those two things scared the snot out of a whole lot of people. It was a flu strain that had to be taken seriously. If it had mutated and gotten just a bit more deadly, the consequences could have been dire.

The big problem with all this is that the WHO now looks like they dont know what they're talking about. People will be slower to react to their next warning. And if a new 1918-type flu were to emerge, that could be catestrophic...

[BlueHair]

Bingo.

There was reason for alarm. H1N1 clearly WAS a virulent strain in that it spread quickly. It also had the shock-and-awe factor in that while it was generally a less serious strain in terms of overall death rate (ie it didn't kill a lot of old people - probably because 1) it simply wasn't that strong virus, and 2) it was closely related to two previous swine flu strains that older individuals would likely have been exposed to in the 50s and the 70s, and they had some resistance to it), it did seem to randomly kill young people who would usually not be too adversely affected by a normal flu strain. Those two things scared the snot out of a whole lot of people. It was a flu strain that had to be taken seriously. If it had mutated and gotten just a bit more deadly, the consequences could have been dire.

The big problem with all this is that the WHO now looks like they dont know what they're talking about. People will be slower to react to their next warning. And if a new 1918-type flu were to emerge, that could be catestrophic...

The problem is it seems like every other year there is some disease that is going to kill us all. SARS, Bird Flu, Asian Flu, Swine Flu, etc... They never pan out.

[ERCougar]

The WHO/CDC did exactly what they were supposed to do.

The media did not.

The definition change was made (and I would argue--appropriately) a long time ago. If this was such glaring evidence of conflict interest and false hype production, why didn't the media point this out? Because they enjoyed (and profited from) the hype. Conflict of interest, indeed.

[TheAzzuri]

The problem is it seems like every other year there is some disease that is going to kill us all. SARS, Bird Flu, Asian Flu, Swine Flu, etc... They never pan out.

I see that as a good thing, not a problem.

[doctorcoug]

The WHO/CDC did exactly what they were supposed to do.

The media did not.

The definition change was made (and I would argue--appropriately) a long time ago. If this was such glaring evidence of conflict interest and false hype production, why didn't the media point this out? Because they enjoyed (and profited from) the hype. Conflict of interest, indeed.

And yet the media is still looking to profit from it by trying to hype the "wolf". It was real, it infrequently was serious, and people to this day have loved ones that died prematurely because of it.

[statman]

The problem is it seems like every other year there is some disease that is going to kill us all. SARS, Bird Flu, Asian Flu, Swine Flu, etc... They never pan out.

SARS killed a very very high percentage of the people who contracted it (~40-50% IIRC). It spread like wild-fire in small clusters of people. It was a gigantic public health threat. I don't think it actually killed anyone in the US because we treated it very aggressively (basically, if someone had it, put them in a drug induced coma, put in a chest tube and put them on a respirator to keep them alive until the virus runs its course). But if it had spread to a large enough number of people - ie if people outnumber available respirators - we would have had death rates like everyone else...