Michael Fumento

One blog site, Effect Measure, part of a consortium called "Science Blogs," that had long warned of the inevitable utter devastation of pandemic avian flu - and condemned my "rantings that bird flu was a "Chicken Little" story - quickly latched onto swine flu as its substitute. Now, bitterly disappointed by the realization that tens of millions of people are not going to die, it's telling readers to ignore the swine flu data in favor of heart-rending anecdotes. Very scientific!

"As this outbreak moves forward we will be barraged by numbers and statistics. This is a form of spectator sport to which we have become accustomed," it states. "As the late epidemiologist [and alarmist] Irving Selikoff once remarked about the horrific toll of asbestos victims, 'death statistics are people with the tears wiped away.'"

And non-death statistics are cause for mourning.