H1N1 threat overblown, report says

Posted at 1:31 PM on October 21, 2009 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)
Filed under: Health

We're six months into the outbreak of H1N1 flu and we still can't seem to get a clear picture of how serious the outbreak is.

True, some hospitals in the Twin Cities have turned away patients because they're overwhelmed with people who either have or think they have H1N1, but a CBS News investigation this afternoon claims the statistics are overblown.

It's impossible to know for sure because the Centers for Disease Control in July told states to stop testing patients for H1N1.

Had the states conducted the testing, CBS says, we would have found out that most people who have H1N1, really don't:

We asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.

Meanwhile, Minnesota has set up a "flu hotline" for those people who think they've got the flu. The FluLine number is 1-866-259-4655.

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Comments (4)

While the CBS comments seem to be your standard cesspool of idiocy, there are a few valid points. First, CBS requested the data through July, when it is expected that flu activity will be down. Next, the implication in the article is that nobody is being tested for H1N1. While it is true that most people with influenza-like-illness (ILI) aren't being tested, testing is still going on. In fact, the most recent week of testing by the CDC showed a 29.4% positive rate, and the most recent Minnesota data shows a 26% positive rate. Every case of influenza-like-illness isn't being tested simply because we have limited resources. Performing tests takes reagents, reagents cost money (which we don't have) and aren't being produced in the quantity that would be needed to test everyone.

CBS then uses its old data to draw mediocre conclusions from its data. In CDC Region 3, which is where Georgetown would be, the CDC's testing of hospitalized cases in the week of September 19 showed a 15.1% positive rate, with a national positive rate of 23.9%, not the single-digit rates that CBS implies.

Finally, CBS engages in vaccine fear-mongering in talking about "the hastily developed H1N1 flu vaccine," implying that it was developed differently than the seasonal flu vaccine (which it wasn't) and talking about the extremely rare Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) and mentioning only the worst (and rarest) manifestations of GBS, not mentioning that you are orders of magnitude more likely to die from H1N1 than to get GBS from a vaccine and either die or become paralyzed. MPR published a commentary devoted to debunking some of those myths.

Posted by MR | October 21, 2009 2:44 PM

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Midmorning also did a show on myths and H1N1 on Monday, which you can find here.

The first 10 minutes alone were quite informative.

Posted by Bob Collins | October 21, 2009 2:50 PM

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Maybe I'm missing something... is the lab test for the H1N1 somehow particularly different than the other influenza viruses? My son got tested last year for the flu; it was an 11-minute test. (I remember the number because I was curious why they specified 11, rather than just say "about 10 min".)

I realize the test may be antigen-specific (Influenza A vs. B vs. whatever).

But is the H1N1 test long & complicated?

Posted by Elizabeth T | October 22, 2009 12:37 AM

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Elizabeth,
There are two kinds of tests. Your son got the "rapid" test, which has a relatively high probability of false negatives. There is also a much longer test that takes between 6 and 10 hours to run. More time, more expensive, but MUCH more accurate.

Posted by MR | October 22, 2009 6:28 AM

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