Every few months the media has to find some apocalyptic disease or condition to worry about, even though it’s not nearly as bad as they make it out to be. A couple of years ago it was shark attacks. Earlier this year it was SARS. This winter it’s the killer flu.
A few people around the country have died from a new, more virulent strain of the flu. Mostly it’s been children, but an 18-year-old kid died the other day. I’m not saying that it isn’t a tragedy for those families, but it’s hardly the epidemic that media is beginning to make it out to be.
Part of the reason for concern is the shortfall of flu vaccine. There’s just not enough to go around. Like so many problems, the beginnings of this one can be traced to the Clinton administration. In the late 90s, the Clinton White House opposed a bill that would have given the pharmaceutical industry various breaks and incentives to make more flu vaccine. But the liberals opposed anything that would give “eeeevil” drug companies any more profit so it died. And so drug companies got out of the unprofitable vaccine business, leaving us without a sufficient supply of the vaccine. Thank you Bill and Hill and the Democrats once again.
I was surprised by the number you gave. I thought that it couldn’t possibly be that high. But this CDC information puts it at 36,000 plus another 11,000 from some type of respiratory ailment. Most of them are elderly.
OK, in the grand scheme of a population of 300 million, that’s not a lot, but if that’s how many die every year, why is the media making such a big deal now? Obviously, it’s so they can have a big story with dramatic music and its own graphics.