Not shocked, but it's a little surprising to see this.

appears to be some meat to the allegations too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/04/AR2010060403034.html

Your link is not working for me.

However, as someone who worked in public health information for almost 20 years, I can't imagine ANY scientist overselling this threat unless they were getting major kickbacks.

Virtually all of the epidemiologists who work on this stuff have lived in fear of the next great flu epidemic all their lives. History says it's coming eventually, regardless of how we prepare.

fixed the link.

Not surprised at all. Notice we haven't heard anything for a long time about the Swine Flu. Bunch of media driven mass hysteria.

The Flu kills a lot of people every year, whether it's swine flu or some other random strain. H1N1 was very overexaggerated. Hell, the flu vaccines weren't even approved by the FDA.

I blame this on the liberal media and Bush.

And also Rahm Emmanuel.

Writerbuckeye;379312 wrote:Your link is not working for me.

However, as someone who worked in public health information for almost 20 years, I can't imagine ANY scientist overselling this threat unless they were getting major kickbacks.

Virtually all of the epidemiologists who work on this stuff have lived in fear of the next great flu epidemic all their lives. History says it's coming eventually, regardless of how we prepare.

Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought most of the scientists working in this area were employed by the pharmaceutical companies, so I'd assume some sort of financial incentives were in place for getting the vaccine out to as many people as possible.

Websurfinbird;381565 wrote:Please correct me if I'm wrong but I thought most of the scientists working in this area were employed by the pharmaceutical companies, so I'd assume some sort of financial incentives were in place for getting the vaccine out to as many people as possible.

There are literally thousands of epidemiologists out there in state and federal government positions, working for university and research organizations who have nothing to do with producing vaccine. In fact, I'd say the number of scientists directly involved in producing vaccine is very small when compared with the number who work with disease and disease prevention on a daily basis.

And none of those have any financial motive for pushing a vaccine.

What are you talking about???

The H1N1 vaccines were most definitely approved by the FDA lol. They, like all flu vaccines, are fast-tracked through the process, but they still must be approved prior to administration.

If they didn't fast-track them through, they would be about 5-7 years behind the current strain of flu.

I work in healthcare and didn't get vaccinated, not because the risk wasn't there, but because H1N1 is a mild version of the flu... as in if you're healthy you don't even get that sick. We have no immunity to it so it spread like wildfire, but the only people in any danger are either immunocompromised or pregnant.

Writerbuckeye;379312 wrote:Your link is not working for me.

However, as someone who worked in public health information for almost 20 years, I can't imagine ANY scientist overselling this threat unless they were getting major kickbacks.

Virtually all of the epidemiologists who work on this stuff have lived in fear of the next great flu epidemic all their lives. History says it's coming eventually, regardless of how we prepare.

Writer having faith in someone working in the public and for liberal universities! I have to say I'm shocked. This might be the most non-cynical post I've seen him write....whether it be regarding the Buckeyes or anything else! Oh Happy Day!

If there is a good function of government, it is that it should do what the private sector or private individual can't. To that end public health is well within that definition. There is no way to know just how much the 'overexaggeration' cut the legs out from under the epidemic. As nothing happened...were they successful?

In much the same way as the outrage about the oil spill in the Gulf...was the risk of that 'overexaggerated' a year ago?...no one complains until a disaster happens. Oh, the uproar!...why wasn't something done to prevent this? Whose to blame? Someone should be sued!.

Be thankful that people are out there monitoring diseases and putting alerts out. Surely, it doesn't take a genius to realize that the potential danger from a strain of flu that most of the general population has no immunity to, constitutes a public health threat. That it didn't materialize doesn't mean that it was an 'overexaggeration'...only that we were successful in mitigating it or we were lucky, or both.