Recall that President Gerald Ford suggested the entire US population be vaccinated for the swine flu back in 1976. It was called “the epidemic that never was.” Just one soldier died of it at an Army base. Over 40 million were vaccinated against swine flu. Mass vaccination backfired. Within days several people who took the vaccine were seriously ill. Many people developed a nerve disorder, called guillain barre syndrome. More than $3.5 billion in damages were paid out by the vaccine manufacturers to compensate 4000 victims.
Swine flu hysteria again in 2009
#1. Math.
The greater Mexico City Metropolitan area has a population of 22 million people according to Wikipedia.
Many millions of them live in crushing poverty, poor health and with poor sanitary conditions.
1,000 "cases" (which is higher than the so-far reported number) equals 0.005% of the population. 60 deaths equals 0.0003% of the population.
7 comments:
The funniest thing to me is "Resources to combat swine flu hysteria #1. Math."
It's like, "Ways to calm your fear over Swine Flu: #1 Use your head. #2 Use your logic #3 Use your math."
This whole thing is so funny to me. So entertaining.
Great old ad from the 70s hysteria! It can't get any better than this.
Robert said: That all sounds good except.... we will never know how many people would have died without it.
None would have died. The epidemic never really broke out. It was a threat that never materialized.
Robert Said: According to Ron Paul "the flu came and the flu went and only one person died but 25 died from the flu shot"+- So I guess we will never know how many would have died without the flu shots.
If more people die from a vaccine than the actual disease something is wrong.
Robert Said: That's right Tavia, but it could also mean that the vaccine worked really well.
Let's say the 40 million took the vaccine. 25 died. Without the vaccine how many would have died? We will never know but I think the number is around 10,000. Now I hear that 36,000 people died each year from the flu. If that number is correct then it would seem that more than 25 would die out of 40 million people. That number should have been approx 10,000. So 25 people gave their lives so that 10,000 could live. Now that doesn't seem as bad when you say it that way. Let's look at the whole picture. The numbers seem to support the vaccine.
The vaccination program did not begin until nine months after the one death contributed to swine flu.
In January 1976, 19-year old U.S. Army Private David Lewis, stationed at Fort Dix, collapsed and died a short time later of pneumonia caused by influenza. By the end of January, 155 soldiers at Fort Dix reported positive for swine flu antibodies. All of the reported swine flu cases had been limited to the soldiers in Private Lewis' camp. The virus wasn't spreading. By March, the normal end of flu season, worldwide cases of all types of flu had diminished, and not one case of swine flu had been reported outside of Fort Dix. By July, the scientists agreed that a pandemic was not a threat. They learned that the flu strain extracted from Private Lewis was much less virulent that the 1918 strain, and modern medicine could handle an outbreak far better than the World War I doctors could.
But the U.S. government was unstoppable. Congress began to pressure the drug companies to work faster toward development of a swine flu vaccine. The drug companies insisted it required years of experimentation and trials. The drug companies suggested that they could work faster if they were given immunity from lawsuits in the event something went wrong with the vaccine.
On Oct. 1, 1976, the immunization program began. The death blow came a few weeks later when reports appeared of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing neuromuscular disorder, among some people who had received swine flu immunizations. Less than 33 percent of the population had been immunized by the end of 1976. The Immunization Program was effectively halted on Dec. 16.
The 1976 to 1977 flu season was the most flu-free since records had been kept; a condition that was apparently unrelated to the vaccination program. The Great Swine Flu Epidemic of 1976 never took place.
The above is excerpted from the following article:
http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/04/28/1976_swine_flu/
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