Or even the Bulls**t flu:
So You Think You Have Swine Flu? Am I the only one--besides Michael Fumento--who finds reports like NBC's last night on the spread of swine flu ("galloping its way across the country") to be wildly unconvincing? The NBC piece claims "90 dead" last week under the rubric "swine flu cases." [See about 1:10 in] This is almost certainly BS. As this CDC report makes clear, that figure includes both the swine flu and the regular annual flu. Indeed, NBC promiscuously conflates a) swine flu (H1N1); b) regular flu and c) "flu like symptoms" which may not be any kind of flu at all. ... That may be because the CDC itself has decided to conflate at least the first two categories, as noted in this seemingly damning CBS story and confirmed in the CDC report itself:
This new system was implemented on August 30, 2009, and replaces the weekly report of laboratory confirmed 2009 H1N1-related hospitalizations and deaths that began in April 2009. Jurisdictions can now report to CDC either laboratory confirmed or pneumonia and influenza syndromic-based counts of hospitalizations and deaths resulting from all types or subtypes of influenza, not just those from 2009 H1N1 influenza virus. [E.A.]
I think this means the CDC does not really know how many cases are swine flu and how many aren't. (The regular flu kills many thousands of people every year.)
There's nothing bureaucrats like better than a crisis because it allows them to a) justify their existence and b) ask for money from any likely sucker. The United Nations is probably the all time champ in this regard since they are so woefully inept and so wildly profligate, but the Obama bureaucrats are coming on strong since they have the American taxpayers' pockets to pick and a lapdog Congress to let them get away with any hare-brained scheme they dream up. Of course, lack of a crisis is no problem - they'll just make one up like global warming and now the Bull Flu.
