Also, his assertion that swine flu is the same as the regular flu is also not the case.
H1N1 flu is a novel flu, a sort that hasn’t been seen widely in 30 years, so most younger people don’t have ANY immunity to it. That’s why there are many more cases of H1N1 this year than you would have of a regular seasonal flu, which is similar to previous seasonal flus, and some of us have some immunity to it, so it does not spread as rapidly.
Second, there is the possibility of a deadly mutation of H1N1 – World Health Organization scientists are concerned about one such strain now in the Netherlands and five other countries, that seems to attack the lungs much worse than standard H1N1 flu.
Third, there is always the very real possibility of a flu strain in future years (swine or bird) that will be novel and a big killer, such as the 1918 flu, which killed over 3% of the world population. It killed mostly young, healthy people, whereas the seasonal flu tends to kill the very young and the very old.
Discover Magazine had a quote from a public health worker that sums up the situation:
To paraphrase:
The killer flu is like the boy who cried wolf. Except the wolf is still there.
We have been lulled into complacency because the killer swine flu did not materialize in 1976, and it appears that this year’s variety may not be a huge killer flu.
This can be likened to the words of the man who jumped off the Empire State Building, as he passed the second floor, “So far, so good.”