According to the CDC, flu activity is increasing in the US, and "So far, most flu is 2009 H1N1 flu (sometimes called "swine flu")." Earlier this week, CBS News released the results from a 3-month-old study that included state-by-state test results, stating that the H1N1 flu cases are not as prevalent as feared.
So here is a conflicting view between the CDC and CBS News. Who is correct?
In July, the CDC advised states to stop testing for H1N1 as it had already been declared as a pandemic, and there was no need to waste money on further testing. At the same time, the health authorities in Finland downgraded the swine flu threat as the majority of the cases recovered with hospitalization or medication.
The flu season has ended in the Southern hemisphere, and the statistics show that it was not as bad as expected. The CDC is not heeding this information.
The CBS study revealed some surprising results: the vast majority of the cases were negative for H1N1 as well as the seasonal flu, but were more likely some type of cold or upper respiratory infection.
According to the CBS News study, when you come down with chills, fever, cough, runny nose, malaise and all those other "flu-like" symptoms, the illness is likely caused by influenza at most 17 percent of the time and as little as 3 percent! The other 83 to 97 percent of the time it's caused by other viruses or bacteria.
When the head of the influenza branch of the CDC was asked by Barbara Loe Fisher, the founder of the National Vaccine Information Center, about the percentage of the flu-like illness that occurs in the US is actually due to the flu, she was told roughly 20%. This corresponds with the CBS study.
It seems that the CDC is ringing false alarm bells. It is screaming that H1N1 is so different from the seasonal influenza strains that have circulated in the past few decades that a national alarm must be sounded and everyone needs to be so afraid that we all should get vaccinated to prevent a deadly pandemic, and while the symptoms of the seasonal flu and swine flu appear to be similar, the vaccine appear to be different.
There is more to this than meets the eye. Remember that not every illness that appears to be the flu actually is the flu. In fact, most of the time it's not.