• Two new reports suggest they did. Last year, swine flu, or H1N1, was treated as the second coming of the black plague. A couple of new reports suggest the people making the recommendations to WHO had ties to the drug industry, and those recommendations led to governments wasting millions of dollars on H1N1 vaccines that would never actually get used. “We are left wondering whether major public health organizations are able to effectively manage the conflicts of interest that are inherent in medical science,” one report says. So, who’s the swine now? source

• 57M number of people that got swine flu in the U.S. since the outbreak began last April
• 257k number of people that had to be hospitalized as a result of a strong swine flu case
• 12k number of people that died as a result of getting swine flu, which isn’t really that bad

A little perspective on H1N1:

• 35,000 people usually die from the flu yearly

• » Demographic changes: H1N1 is an odd outbreak, because while it has killed far fewer people than a traditional outbreak, many of those people are younger than 65, a change from traditional influenza, which is often deadlier for the elderly.
• » Did swine flu replace the normal flu? One of the things that researchers found was that most people who they tested with flu symptoms had swine flu, not a normal strain. Which suggests that the swine flu outbreak may have neutered a normal flu season.
• » More’s still on the way: We’re still not out of the woods yet. Flu activity, whether H1N1 or traditional, is still expected for several more months. As long as we don’t have to pull Dustin Hoffman to save the day again. source

• 50 million piggies went back to the manufacturer source

• 800,000 piggies got recalled source

• 5.7 million likely H1N1 sufferers between May and July source

• The First Daughters got the vaccine last week, when it first became available in D.C. It’s a hard vaccine to get in these parts, by the way. The whole First Family got flu shots, BTW. source

• Obama and the First Lady are waiting based on the order of priority – they’re after the “young people under the age of 24, pregnant women, and people with underlying conditions.” source

• did source

• didn’t source

• 46
  states currently have widespread levels of swine flu running through their populations; 1,000 people have died so far source

• The Earth can’t take 6.5 billion people. We just can’t feed that many. So what are you going to do? Kill as many as you can. We have to develop a science that kills them and makes it look as though they died from some disease.
• Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan • Discussing how the swine flu vaccine is dangerous and you shouldn’t take it because it might kill you. Shut up, you fearmongering jerk. Just. Shut. Up. • source