On Saturday President Obama officially declared the H1N1 "Swine Flu"
a national emergency allowing for some restrictions of producing medicines to combat the illness to come to the market in an expidited manner. Since this is a major pandemic we're facing, something had to be done yesterday to make us all safe from the flu...because if it weren't we are all going to
DIE!!!
But I swear I have heard this song before about a different variant of the flu. To channel Estelle Getty as Sophia Petrillo, "Picture it: 2003 to 2006." A pandemic that is going to ravage the world comes out of Asia, threatening mankind as we know it. People were urged to get vaccinated, as it was the only way to combat the spread of the dreaded Avian Flu. The only thing was, the pandemic that we were allegedly faced with never materialized. Even
CBS News, despite their alarmist headline had to report that from 2003 when the Bird Flu swept out of Asia like a viral Ghengis Khan, until 2006 there were a whopping, amazing, devastating
184 deaths
WORLDWIDE in the "pandemic"! 184 whole people out of population of billions died in this pandemic that threatened to destroy humanity as we knew it! Scary stuff, huh?
If the president wanted to declare something a national emergency he would be well served to ignore the
PANDEMIC!!!!! warninigs from papers like the Washington Post. According to an October Post story, "Since the pandemic began at least 3,873 Americans have died from complications associated with the flu, primarily the H1N1 virus, including at least 28 pregnant women." See, the
Post has
proven that Swine Flu is a killer, right? Well....not so much. Because what the Post doesn't tell you is that there is an even deadlier strain of flu to be dealt with that kills more people per year than the roughly 1000 Americans, including 76 under the age of 18, than H1N1 has struck down.
If the president were serious about protecting us from a flu bug that has the potential to wreak havoc on America, he would shift focus from the Swine Flu and focus on the real threat. Seasonal Flu.
Seasonal flu?
Yes, seasonal flu. You read it right, as shocking as it might be.
As much attention as the Swine Flu gets in the media and from the government, there have only been about 5000 deaths worldwide attributed to the virus, and as said before, only 1000 deaths here in America. By contrast, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention there are on average
36,171 deaths in America alone attributable to the seasonal flu, with an average of 68 of those being children under the age of 18. Yet, we are deluged with stories about the deadly nature of H1N1 and the need to fight it with all of our resources!
Why is that, you ask?
Because the Swine Flu isn't about the disease or about the health of the people here, it is all about the politics of the situation. Hyping the virus allows the the administration to take focus off of the problems they are having on healthcare reform, and it allows the government to take just a bit more of your freedom from you. When certain government officials start saying that you must get the vaccine, that should raise your hackles. What business of the government's is it if you get a flu shot or not? But if they can force you to get that vaccine, what other medical treatments can they force you to get? And if the government can get you focused on the H1N1 virus, they think they can get you to stop paying attention to what they're trying to do to the healthcare sector in this country. If they can convince you that H1N1 is the biggest story going, maybe they can slip a public option right past you.
Conspiratorial? Maybe.
But would you put it past the Outfit in charge in the White House? I wouldn't.
So settle in here and watch the crises pile up, at least according to the White House. Because a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.