October 29, 2009 9:11 AM

H1N1 Swine flu - a doctor's perspective

Thank goodness, a clear-headed perspective by a practicing physician (HT: Wendy)  Very important to read this thoroughly:

October 29, 2009

Swine Flu Panic in Perspective

By Frank S. Rosenbloom, M.D.

I usually see about twenty patients in my office, and at least a few patients in the hospital, daily. Over the past several months, my patient load has increased by one third. Almost all of the increase is due to fears about H1N1 influenza.

Patients are coming to the office fearful of "Swine Flu," with symptoms ranging from a slight sniffle to overt pneumonia. After seeing hundreds of cases of "flu" over the past several months and testing all of those who fit the clinical picture of influenza, I have confirmed only three genuine cases of H1N1. Two of these cases were in physicians and one was in a nurse.

All of the other cases turned out to be allergies, typical viral or bacterial infections, or the seasonal flu. Additionally, all three had mild illness and recovered with symptomatic treatment. The graph below shows the percentage of visits for influenza-like illness reported by the U.S. Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network for the week ending October 17, 2009. Note the much higher percentage of visits for flu-like illnesses this year. (Fig 1)

This graph reflects the anxiety that has been caused, not an increased rate of disease, but the title of the original article is still appropriate. It is necessary to keep this "pandemic" in perspective. We have an administration that will try to divert attention away from other issues and a public health system that is more than willing to help them.

In May of this year I wrote an article entitled "Swine Flu in Perspective." In it I noted the following:

Finally, 36,000 people die from Influenza every year in this country. That's 100 people a day on average!  Sadly, a baby from Mexico died in Texas from the Swine Flu. There will likely be more deaths here, but not in the numbers some would have you believe. However, about 100 people in the US die from the typical flu every day. Swine flu is a flu! Of course, every life is precious. But more Americans die from car accidents than the flu. Do we need to be vigilant? Of course. Should we foment panic? Absolutely not.

I cautioned that more people would likely die but held strongly to the belief that the panic was more dangerous than the disease. Now, five months later, after reviewing the evidence, I have not changed my mind.

So let's review the data.

Read more at American Thinker - and check the comments too for more by other doctors.

Love,

Posted in Health, Obama Nation, Swine Flu | Permalink

Comments

The department of health has launched a campaign to encourage NHS staff to have the new swine flu vaccine as concerns over its safety still linger Swine Flu UK

Posted by: Sean Rushforth | October 29, 2009 11:28 AM

Excellent article!

Posted by: evergreen | October 29, 2009 12:03 PM

I don't know. There are still a LOT of people who have been sick enough to miss school or work. Do you think it is all in their heads? I agree that there is a huge to do about this, but I also think that it is serious business. Over 1000 people have died already due to H1N1. My son's class room had about 75% absent one day. You can't find Tamiflu in the county. I guess some of those could be caused by over-active imaginations, but not the deaths.
I sure hope your large family stays healthy! I know you work hard for it.

[Sandra, did you read the article? Dr. Rosenbloom said that normally 36,000 people a year die from flu - that's 100 per day.

One problem is that because of our vast feeling of entitlement, we think we should never have to be sick (or unhappy - then we take anti-depressants). Our family has never gotten flu shots or Tamiflu. we haven't had a flu for several years. Maybe it works better if you can build up immunity.

I have done everything I can to not only inform readers about the Big Pharma and Big Government issues at stake here - but also to point us all toward prevention. As a couple of moms who happened to have serious cases within their family, they still would have gone the route of not giving the vaccine to their chidlren - but their warning is that not to delay seeking help when it is necessary.]

Posted by: sandra | October 29, 2009 12:04 PM

See, I think the downplaying can go bad, too.
Here's how I see it, this flu is different in that it kills more healthy young people than the seasonal flu generally does. I think they used to call viral pneumonia (which is how I think you normally die with the flu) the old man's friend, or something like that. No person lives forever, we all die of something, and when folks are old and frail often this sort of thing is what they die of.

So when I'm deciding whether to risk exposing my kid, it's a scale, and since swine flu is somewhat more dangerous for them than the regular flu, I get to take that into account.

So when my kids didn't have swine flu, I pulled them out of school the day it looked like it was hitting full force. When they got it anyway (it's contagious before you are symptomatic) I kept them out of school until they weren't contagious anymore out of respect for the health of other kids. I would not have been as stringent if it had been a cold.

Here's the deal with the government, though. I spent several hours trucking my kid to the doctor and waiting because of the overfilled schedule, only to be told no test. Why? The CDC has a new recommendation that no one be tested (because we all know how dangerous that whole information thing can be) so insurance wasn't paying for some testing and I could get stuck with a $600 bill.
Why did I want the test? So I could know I could lower my alert level a bit for sending her back to school if it wasn't swine flu or lower my alert level a lot if it was because now our family had run against it already.
But it also would have been really nice to know for sure. Because our school listens to the CDC when it says "send them home only if they have a fever over 100, vomiting, or diarrhea" so pretty much everyone in the school got swine flu, or exposed to it. Then our school listens to the CDC when it says everyone needs a shot. So we've got a whole school full of kids that probably don't need the shot no matter what you think of shots but are going to get pushed to get them, all because of CDC policy.
It's frustrating.

Posted by: Marie | October 29, 2009 1:02 PM

Finally, someone with authority (being a trained physician and all that), who has the brains to put it all in prespective!

Finally, someone who can speak up who isn't being fooled and deceived!

BTW: Husband had surgery last week. During pre-op, when he and I were discussing the hospital's policy to not allow anyone under age 18 to enter the building, the pre-op nurse spoke up and said she thought it was a lot of hype. She's a nurse! She works in the hospital seeing and dealing with sick people every day. She was also smart enough to realize the hype associated with this when they are reporting on television about specific actors and singers who have had "the flu". Gesh!

Some folks are starting to wise-up.....

....some are still scared.....*sigh*

Even though I have an auto immune disorder, I have not had a flu shot in over 25 yrs. (I was forced to do so when I lived with my parents.).

I think I might have had the flu a total of 3 times in those 25 yrs.
I did get the flu when I was pregnant with my second child (that wasn't fun), but the vaccine that was given that year wasn't even for the strain of flu that was going around. And, I did get pneumonia, too. That wasn't fun either, but I did get better......eventually.

Since changing our family's diet 8 1/2 yrs. ago to eat naturally (and taking some supplements to work on my immune system), we don't battle constant illness like we used to.

We're going to continue with our same strategy: promote a healthy environment inside our body to help fight off the unhealthy that we might come in contact with.

Posted by: von | October 30, 2009 3:53 AM

I just wanted to let you know we got everything for the healthy smoothies today. I made the first batch around lunch time. They were a big hit! We used a greentea/pomegranate juice blend as the juice base and replaced peanut butter with hazelnut butter, but other than that I followed the recipe.

We'll be making these a part of our daily routine.

Posted by: Lauren | October 30, 2009 2:31 PM

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