Michael Fumento

Hallelujah, the disaster has been averted! The World Health Organization last week declared the H1N1 swine flu pandemic over.

Except for one little thing: It never happened. That is, as I write in today's Philly Inquirer, the WHO had no business labeling it a "pandemic." It did so purely for its own interests, wreaking worldwide havoc.

Meanwhile, the world has wasted billions of dollars that could have been spent on diseases like tuberculosis, which each year kills 70 times as many people as swine flu did, according to the WHO. Now add in the "crying wolf" factor, which means many people will ignore public-health warnings when a truly nasty disease comes along, and you'll see how much damage was done by the swine flu disinformation campaign.