Michael Fumento
Factual · Powerful · Original · Iconoclastic
Advice & Dissent: 2009
To provide necessary perspective on the swine flu, I've noted that in the U.S. for each day of the seasonal flu season there are about 800 hospitalizations and 200 deaths. Worldwide, there about 700 -1,400 seasonal flu deaths spread out over the whole year. But what about the…Read More
Initial reports seemed to indicate swine flu was both vastly more contagious and more lethal than seasonal flu. You don't get headlines like: "Bug Outbreak Will Kill Millions Scientist Warns" and "Pandemic Could Kill Up To 120 Million, Warn Experts" for nothing, nor over 30…Read More
Under the subject line of "Hexavaent Chromium" (it's "hexavalent") Nancy omitted wrote: Dear Mr.Fumento, I am researching the P G & E/Hinkley, California case and have read some of your writings. As long as you short cut and use information provided by P G & E scientists…Read More
The usually reasonable Washington Post and Slate columnist Anne Applebaum has gone hysterical over the swine flu hysteria. "Where infectious diseases are concerned, panic is good. Panic is what we want," she writes. "Without panic, nothing happens. Up to 500 million people will…Read More
Bottom Line: If you look at the actual numbers and ignore the spin, the data are actually reassuring. They show a virus both less contagious and less severe than seasonal flu. But that requires actually reading the study and its citations, not just the abstract and press release…Read More
All health agencies tend to exaggerate the threat of anything within their ambit, whether it's numbers or overall severity as we're currently seeing with the WHO and its threats to declare swine flu a pandemic. That's in addition to including with their ambit that which clearly…Read More
The BBC reports Brits are having "swine flu parties," along the lines of chickenpox parties in which kids are intentionally exposed rather than grow up and catch chicken pox as an adult when it's far more dangerous. These flu get-togethers, though, are probably based on the…Read More
Sorry bad guys, other than filling hospitals with worried well, which only takes a small portion of the population, the fear fomenting doesn't seem to be working this time around. A new poll indicates that fewer than a third of U.S. adults would get a shot especially made to…Read More
In my "Pandemic over a Piglet" article at Forbes.com May 15, I challenged both assertions of the WHO-backed authors in Science magazine, that swine flu was both more severe and more contagious than seasonal flu. I noted that the very evidence they gave showed the opposite. It was…Read More
According to a study just released in the CDC publication Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report, swine flu H1N1 was identified in Mexico just after mid-April and appears to have peaked on April 27. Seasonal flu season in the U.S. lasts about five months. Add in the remarkably low…Read More
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