The swine flu business

Summer is over and Autumn is coming with the flu appointment. This year, however, media have begun to talk not only about news on the cold climate and colds, because they have been facilitated by a new "emergency": the influence H1N1. But the pandemic is a real risk or just a hypothesis with which to fill the pages of newspapers and enrich the pharmaceutical companies?

The italian website uppa.it, "a pediatrician for a friend", written by doctors, paediatricians and journalists, recalled in an article that the real problem is not the "pandemic" but the "pandemonium" raised by the media. Another woman died in Sicily (until now there are, in Italy, two victims), but only thorough testing will show that it was H1N1 flu. Newspapers, however, have definitely taken advantage of the issue for headlines, some writing that "the patient was healthy ... before getting sick" as if it was not always like that, before any disease. Banality that, however, have increasingly alarmed readers who are not really careful readers.
Every year, in Italy, 8,500 people die because of the flu, but journalists are talking about these data only now that media are screaming "H1N1 flu is going to kill millions of people." The news was announced by the United Nations and WHO and is thus considered an authoritative source, but even then there are those who reported the news and didn't really questioned the numbers. From the site for a pediatrician friend we can read that the newspaper La Stampa reported those data prominently, also writing that there were 52,710 cases of H1N1 flu with 158 deaths (mortality of one death every 908 cases). But if we go into detail we find that these figures are presented in a strange way: for example in Germany there would have been 19,015 cases and no deaths (mortality zero!), while in Spain on 1538 cases, there would be more than 32 deaths (one death every 48 cases: in that case we should really be afraid!). In Italy, for once, we do well: we recorded 2384 cases with 2 deaths.
The truth is that we should be certain of the diagnosis, and it is not the case, and of the cause of death. Only in this way we could speak of the phenomenon in a strictly scientific way.
About the scientific rigor, epidemiologist Tom Jefferson argues on his website that a better measure of the spread of the pandemic is obtained by consulting what he calls the pandemiometer: a site that analyzes every day the stock price on value of the shares of the major industries involved in some way in the pandemic.

Let's clarify some points: the swine flu was not, until now, dangerous and has been far less aggressive than seasonal flu virus; where the virus has been circulating widely, the percentage of deaths on the number of patients is very low; vaccination ensures that fewer people become ill but who does not make it does not risk his life. (data from the site www.uppa.it)
Meanwhile in mid-November will start the launch of the vaccination campaign in Italy, originally scheduled for 30-40% of the population.
But the vaccine will be administered only to certain categories and will not be available at pharmacies because only doctors will inject it to those working in essential services and to those at risk. The end of January will be the turn of the age group between 2 and 27 years. But was the viceminister for Health, Ferruccio Fazio, who recently said that "The alarm is never useless, but this influence is not serious. It will cause fewer deaths than the seasonal one and many Italians will contract without even realizing it."
The question remains, then, why spending so much money for a mass vaccination and why not having stopped the swine flu panic before it degenerated.

The monitoring of swine fllu in a site.

Marianna Lepore

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