Superstar CBS Reporter Blows the Lid Off the Swine Flu Media Hype and Hysteria

[Guest guest]

(http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/24/Superstar-CBS-Rep\

orter-Blows-the-Lid-Off-the-Swine-Flu-Media-Hype-and-Hysteria.aspx)

Superstar CBS Reporter Blows the Lid Off the Swine Flu Media Hype and

Hysteria

_http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/24/Superstar-CBS

-Reporter-Blows-the-Lid-Off-the-Swine-Flu-Media-Hype-and-Hysteria.aspx_

(http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/24/Superstar-CBS-Rep

orter-Blows-the-Lid-Off-the-Swine-Flu-Media-Hype-and-Hysteria.aspx)

 

Sharyl Attkisson is a CBS News correspondent and investigative reporter.

She’s covered Capitol Hill since February 2006 and has been a

Washington-based correspondent there since January 1995. She was also part of

the CBS

news team that received the Edward Murrow Award in 2005 for overall

excellence. Additionally, she received an Outstanding Investigative Journalism

Emmy

in 2002 for a series on the Red Cross.

In case you didn't realize it, Sharyl Attkisson is the investigative

reporter behind the groundbreaking CBS News study that found H1N1 flu cases are

NOT as prevalent as feared.

In fact, they’re barely on the radar screen.How did this startling

information come about, and why is the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention (CDC) painting a different picture entirely? I spoke directly with

Sharyl Attkisson to find out.

Two Videos

The first video is an amazing interview I did with Sharyl about ten days

ago and what the bulk of this article is based on.

The second video is brand new and was done at noon yesterday in which I

was videoed in the CBS studio in downtown Chicago. Sharyl was gracious enough

to invite me to be on with Dr. Bernadine Healy, the former director of the

NIH. We both were in agreement about the swine flu and opposed to the

stance the CDC is taking, but we had different views on mammograms.

Please also watch the second interview as it is very entertaining.

Getting Started on the Swine Flu Trail

Ms. Attkisson says:

“The reason I looked into this is a couple of months ago, I got tips from

three or four different segments of public healthcare, with folks telling

me the CDC has recommended that they go ahead and stop testing for and

counting swine flu cases.

Each different entity that contacted me was concerned, thinking that this

should not be happening. They really felt that it was necessary for the

swine flu to continue to be tracked in some details. So I went about trying to

find out why this decision was made and what the ramifications would be.

… I started by contacting the CDC and the HHS and asking some basic

questions. I felt like I pretty much got stonewalled with some of the

information

I really needed to get at, especially what I needed from the states data,

and information on the rationale behind this decision to stop counting and

testing for swine flu.â€

Because the CDC did not initially respond to Attkisson’s requests, she

contacted all 50 states directly, asking for their statistics on state

lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in

July.

She also asked states, one by one, to help explain the rationale behind the

CDC’s decision to stop tracking H1N1 cases.

Attkisson continues:

“One of my good sources within the government said to me that they’re

either trying to, in his opinion, over-represent the swine flu numbers or

under-represent by not counting them anymore. He said, “You need to find out

which it is.†And so to find out which it might be, I really wanted to see

the data that the CDC had at the time it made the decision to quit counting

the cases.â€

 

What Her Investigative Report Reveals

If you listen to most media outlets and even to government agencies, you

get the impression that virtually every person who has visited their

physician with flu-like symptoms in recent months has H1N1, with no testing

necessary because, after all, there's an epidemic.

We are all being led to believe that every case diagnosed as “swine fluâ€

or even as “flu-like illness†is, in fact, swine flu.

But Attkisson’s investigation revealed a very different picture right from

her first contact with individual states. She explains:

“Across the country, state by state, they were testing [for H1N1] until

CDC told them not to bother. They were testing, in general, the cases most

likely to be believed to have been swine flu based on a doctor’s diagnosis of

symptoms and risk factors such as travel to Mexico.

These special cases were going to state labs for absolute confirmation

with the best test -- not the so-called “rapid testing,†but the real

confirmation test.

Of those presumed likely swine flu cases out of approximately every

hundred of what was tested, only a small fraction were actually swine flu. In

every instance, perhaps the biggest number of cases that were swine flu was

something like 30%. The smallest number was something like 2% or 3%.

Maybe there’s one state where it was just 1%.

The point is, of the vast majority of the presumed swine flu cases

recognized by trained physicians, the vast majority were not flu at all. They

weren

’t swine flu or regular flu; they were some other sort of upper

respiratory infection.â€

And here is the clincher that it seems the CDC just doesn’t want the

American public to know …

“The CDC explained that one of the reasons they quit counting was because

of all the flu that’s out there, most are swine flu. Well, that’s true.

Most of the flu that was out there was indeed swine flu, but they failed to

say that most of the suspected flu was nothing at all. And I think that’s

the caveat the public just didn’t know,†Attkisson explains.

She gives even more striking examples of the numbers the investigative

report revealed. For instance:

* In Florida, 83 percent of specimens that were presumed to be swine

flu were negative for all flu when tested!

* In California, 86 percent of suspected H1N1 specimens were not

swine flu or any flu; only 2 percent were confirmed swine flu.

* In Alaska, 93 percent of suspected swine flu specimens were

negative for all flu types; only 1 percent was H1N1 flu.

 

Freedom of Information and Getting the Truth Out

It is not easy for journalists to access this type of information, and

they often have to wait weeks, months or even years for information from the

CDC and the FDA -- information that is readily available and supposed to be

clearly public.

Attkisson expands on the difficulties she faced in trying to get simple

data regarding swine flu cases in the United States:

“They [CDC’s public affairs] quit communicating with me when I pressed on

why I couldn’t get certain information. They just wouldn’t answer my

emails anymore. So I had to file a Freedom of Information request, which is

usually my last choice because I know I was going into a deep black hole many

times and I’ll never get an answer.

But in this case, I got an interesting response on October 19 from the CDC

when I had asked for some simple, public documents that would have been

easy for them to obtain too quickly.

Journalists are allowed to ask for expedited processing of their Freedom

of Information request because, for obvious reasons, they’re working on a

story that may have public impact or be of public interest. The agencies are

not supposed to use the Freedom of Information Law to obstruct or delay the

release of this information.

This may be the first time I was denied that expedited processing from

Freedom of Information that we’re entitled to as members of the press; a

letter from HHS or Health and Human Services (the CDC is under HHS) said to me

that one of the reasons they’re denying my expedited processing is because

this is not a matter of “widespread and exceptional media or public interest.

â€

In other words, the CDC doesn’t think these questions about swine flu

prevalence and these other things that we’ve been asking are, at least in

their

opinion in this letter, not a matter of widespread and exceptional media

or public interest.â€

Yet, while the CDC expressed that questions about swine flu prevalence

were not a matter of widespread media or public interest, the President had

declared the swine flu a national public health emergency!

The inconsistencies at the CDC are nearly incomprehensible.

The Ramifications of the Swine Flu Policy

According to Attkisson’s CBS News study, when you come down with chills,

fever, cough, runny nose, malaise and all those other " flu-like " symptoms,

the illness is likely caused by influenza at most 17 percent of the time and

as little as 3 percent! The other 83 to 97 percent of the time it's caused

by other viruses or bacteria.

So remember that not every illness that appears to be the flu actually is

the flu. In fact, most of the time it's not.

Curiously, the CDC still advises those who were told they had 2009 H1N1

(and therefore should be immune to getting it again) to get vaccinated unless

they had lab confirmation.

But because very few people have actually had a lab-confirmed case of H1N1

(and in most cases those people told they had swine flu probably did not),

this means nearly everyone is still being advised to get the swine flu

vaccine.

Attkisson has been one of the few to speak out against this flawed system

and point out the serious ramifications that come when a public health

agency is secretive about their health data.

Attkisson says:

“From a public and journalistic standpoint, I believe the mistake comes

when you don’t fully disclose to the public as you go and discover the

mistakes. Try to disclose and fix things that come up.

Everybody understands that there isn’t a perfect system, but I think you

need to be upfront with them, explain what you’re doing, and explain what you

’re discovering. If you’ve made a mistake or you feel like you need to

correct something, say that, too, but don’t just try to keep information from

the public.â€

I couldn’t agree more, and Attkisson’s CBS News report has stood out like

a bright light of truth among all the clouds of misinformation.

If you’d like to learn more about the report and its findings, you can

read all the details in the past article _CBS Reveals that Swine Flu Cases

Seriously Overestimated_

(http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/24/CBS-Reveals-that-\

Swine-Flu-Cases-Seriously-Overestimated.aspx) .