Centers for Disease Control accused of lies

Did agency exaggerate to boost manufacturers' vaccine sales?

Posted 7/5/20

US data on influenza deaths are false and misleading.

That's the assertion of a physician posted on the US Department of Health and Human Services web site.

The charge by Dr. …

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Centers for Disease Control accused of lies

Did agency exaggerate to boost manufacturers' vaccine sales?

Posted

US data on influenza deaths are false and misleading.

That's the assertion of a physician posted on the US Department of Health and Human Services web site.

The charge by Dr. Kenneth Stoller of the International Hyperbaric Medical Association was passed on to the Chronicle by a reader.

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledges a difference between flu death and flu associated death," he wrote.

"Yet [it] uses the terms interchangeably.

"Compounding these problems is a marketing of fear — a CDC communications strategy in which medical experts 'predict dire outcomes' during flu seasons."

"The CDC website states what has become commonly accepted and widely reported in the lay and scientific press: annually 'about 36 000 [Americans] die from flu' (www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease.htm) and 'influenza/pneumonia' is the 7th leading cause of death in the United States (www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm).

"Why are flu and pneumonia bundled together?

David Rosenthal, director of Harvard University Health Services, said, "People don't necessarily die, per se, of the [flu] virus—the viraemia. What they die of is a secondary pneumonia. So many of these pneumonias are not viral pneumonias but secondary [pneumonias]."

According to the CDC's National Center for Health Statistics "influenza and pneumonia" took 62 034 lives in 2001 — 61 777 of which were attributed to pneumonia and 257 to flu, and in only 18 cases was flu virus positively identified.

At the 2004 "National Influenza Vaccine Summit," co-sponsored by CDC and the American Medical Association, Glen Nowak, associate director for communications at the NIP, spoke on using the media to boost demand for the vaccine.

Dr, Stoller wrote that 1 step of a "7-Step `Recipe' for Generating Interest in, and Demand for, Flu (or any other) Vaccination" occurs when "medical experts and public health authorities publicly...state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes)—and urge influenza vaccination" (www.ama-assn.org/ama1/pub/upload/mm/36/2004_flu_nowak.pdf).

"Another step entails 'continued reports...that influenza is causing severe illness and/or affecting lots of people, helping foster the perception that many people are susceptible to a bad case of influenza."'Preceding the summit, demand had been low early into the 2003 flu season.

"At that point, the manufacturers were telling us that they weren't receiving a lot of orders for vaccine for use in November or even December," recalled Dr Nowak on National Public Radio. "It really did look like we needed to do something to encourage people to get a flu shot."

"If flu is in fact not a major cause of death, this public relations approach is surely exaggerated. Moreover, by arbitrarily linking flu with pneumonia, current data are statistically biased. Until corrected and until unbiased statistics are developed, the chances for sound discussion and public health policy are limited.

"I am a pediatrician," he wrote "and this propaganda affects my practice directly."

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Kennmeth Stoller

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