# 3304
Yes, I know they can be embarrassing - and difficult to control - particularly when the victim is overly excited.
But we’re adults here, and it’s time we bring this little talked about subject out into the light.
I’ve seen examples of PE (Premature Extrapolation) on practically a daily basis since I began writing about influenza, but lately, with the emergence of H1N1 swine flu . . . we’ve been flooded with them.
This morning I find this headline from The Daily News on their columnists page.
Swine flue may be scary, but 250 times as many die from regular flu
Really?
Wow, aren’t we a bunch of fools for spending BILLIONS of dollars trying to contain and control this virus. The article goes on to assure . . .
The recent outbreak of swine flu throughout New York City has cause fear and panic among teachers, parents and more. All this, despite the much higher number of people who die from regular flu.
Ok, time to give these statements, and the math and methods utilized, a closer look.
First, their rationale. In their own words.
Swine flu has killed eight people in New York this year, sparking panic in schools, fear in hospitals and unease on the subways.
Yet that's a tiny fraction of the up to 2,000 New Yorkers who die every year from seasonal flu - with barely a public murmur.
Believe it or not, that’s the sum total of the argument here.
Regular Flu (2,000)/Swine Flu (8) = 250
Proving (according to the Daily News) that regular flu kills 250 times as many people as swine flu.
Shooting their numbers in the foot, just slightly, is the admission near the end of the article that:
Mathematical models predict that 1,000 to 2,000 New Yorkers will die of flu-related illness every year, Harper said.
The true death toll of seasonal flu is unknown, because it typically kills through its side effects and may never be tracked back to influenza.
So, in order to prove their point, they chose the highest predicted number of flu deaths (2000) in a year, even while admitting that the true death toll of seasonal flu is unknown.
And of course, they are comparing 1 month’s counted Swine Flu deaths against 1 YEAR of estimated regular flu deaths.
And a off-flu-season month, at that!
That seems fair.
And we are also expected to believe that while we can only estimate the number of seasonal flu deaths, we know with certainty how many people have died from swine flu.
This my friends is the heartache of PE.
The point of this article, I’m sure, is to try to reduce the `fear and panic’ of the populace over swine flu, and to push people to get seasonal flu shots.
The all-too-frequently used pejoratives of `Fear and Panic’ appear to be code words for the public asking awkward questions and demanding answers.
But I digress . . .
We were dissecting the suggestion (postulated by The Daily News) that we shouldn’t worry about swine flu because Regular Flu kills 250 times as many people.
Granted, the author doesn’t actually say it, he only intimates that the swine flu virus is far less deadly than seasonal flu. But we’ll go with that idea, since the author went to so much trouble to promote it.
That’s going to come as a genuine surprise to the CDC, the WHO, and Professor Neil Ferguson who calculated that the CFR (Case Fatality Ration) for the new H1N1 was roughly 1 in 250.
Or 4 times higher than seasonal flu.
This desire by the media to try to put hard numbers to the Swine flu outbreak is understandable since this is a novel virus and people are legitimately concerned.
In their article It Is Never Too Soon to Speculate Peter M. Sandman and Jody Lanard write:
Officials and experts should speculate responsibly. That means paying due attention both to worst case scenarios and to likelier and less dire possibilities; it means putting strong emphasis on the uncertainty of the data and the tentativeness of the conclusions; it means addressing explicitly the question of which actions should wait for better data and which should be undertaken now.
Responsible speculation is fine, but we gain little by promoting cherry picked numbers like the ones in this Daily News article.
To review . . .
- The real number of deaths due to swine flu in New York (or anyplace else) is unknown. The idea that while we can only estimate regular flu deaths, but we can accurately count swine flu deaths, is patently ridiculous.
- You can’t (actually, you can . . .but you shouldn’t) take the (highest) number of estimated flu deaths over a full year and divide it by an off-flu-season month (May) swine flu tally and come up with a ratio that has any scientific merit.
The Daily News would do well to spend some time reading Peter M. Sandman’s Risk Communication Website. There they would learn that you don’t gloss over, minimize, or trivialize a legitimate threat.
You tell the truth in plain language, and admit it when you don’t have all the answers.
The public will respect that.
Dr. Sandman recently wrote on the subject:
We won’t know, probably for at least a year, what the real impact of this novel H1N1 virus is going to be.
If it remains in circulation (and it appears poised to do so), it will probably claim at least as many lives as seasonal flu strains do, and likely more.
It also appears to have a predilection for younger people, making its impact on society all that much harder.
Points that the author of this article failed to make.
While the CDC, the HHS and READY.GOV are all urging Americans to prepare for what could be a very rough flu season, we continue to get articles like today’s that seek to minimize – indeed, trivialize – the swine flu threat.
Proving once again the old adage.
Caveat Lector.
