There is a misconception about how serious the flu [regular flu] is in infants and children. This is because the most common source of flu data comes from the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) database. This is what most doctors review when they investigate flu data for any given year so they’ll know how to educate their patients about the risks of the flu. The MMWR reports deaths from the flu and from pneumonia all in the same group. So most doctors (and regular people, too) can’t easily look up how many people died from just the flu in a given year. In addition, the MMWR doesn’t tell us how many infants and young children die compared with the number of elderly adults. All the MMWR does tell us is that over the past several years, about 36,000 people have died annually from the flu and pneumonia. This is the statistic most commonly referred to when people talk about the flu. Most informational materials that promote the flu vaccine cite this statistic from the MMWR, giving the false impression that 36,000 people actually die from the flu every year. In reality, this is the number of deaths from the flu and pneumonia combined. I was reading an Associated Press news release from May 1, 2006, about a new flu vaccine, and sure enough, there it was: “Each winter, flu kills 36,000 Americans, most of them elderly.” No wonder people panic over the flu. Other press releases even go so far as to say, “36,000 people die every year from the flu, most of them infants and the elderly.” Such statements give worried parents the false impression that thousands , if not tens of thousands, of infants are killed each year by the flu.

Emphasis mine. That’s Dr. Robert Sears from his 2007 resource, The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child, pp 121-123. Sears asks us all to slow down, think this through, and ask some tough questions. The publication he refers to, Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, is a product of the Centers for Disease Control. During the time Sears wrote his book, Julie Gerberding–a Bush administration appointee–directed the CDC. Gerberding’s tenure raised concerns about the relationships between the pharmaceutical lobby and our national health. Interestingly enough, Gerberding left her post when Obama came into office and now consults (.pdf) with a PR firm that represents big pharmaceutical giants PHARMA, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Pfizer, Abbott Laboratories, and Johnson & Johnson. But I digress.

What is the actual number of flu fatalities every year? Relatively few. How do I know this? Because the National Center for Health Statistics, a lesser-known database that doctors don’t commonly read, does collect data on all causes of death in the United States. This center, along with the American Lung Association, published a paper in 2004 . . . that detailed the number of deaths from the flu alone in various age groups over the past twenty-five years. They found that there had been fewer than twenty deaths reported each year in eacy of the following age groups:

• Infants under 1 year
• Kids ages 1 to 4 years
• Kids ages 5 to 14 years
• Young adults ages 15 to 24 years
• Adults ages 25 to 34 years

This adds up to only about 100 deaths reportedly caused by the actual flu virus, or complications thereof, each year in children and young adults combined. The same paper says the total number of death from the flu each year in the United States averages about 1500. Over 90 percent of these deaths are in people age sixty-five and older.

As a pediatrician and the author of a book designed to help inform parents, Sears’ focus is on children and young adults. And Sears isn’t anti vaccinations, as you’ll see in the book, but he does want to ask a few questions before injecting our kids on the good word of the pharmaceutical industry.

It’s worth mentioning here that the National Center for Health Statistics is also a CDC-run resource. The current deaths and mortality stats are here. Once again, you’ll see flu and pneumonia deaths presented together, as in the MMWR. Sears doesn’t specify where within NHCS he turned for his data as he prepped his book. The NHCS site is fairly labyrinthine. The other resource Sears cites, from the American Lung Association in conjunction with the NHCS, is no longer available through the ALA website. Here’s the link Sears provides on page 267 of his book:

www.lungusa.org/atf/cf%7B7A8D42C2-FCCA-4604-8ADE-7F5D5E762256%7D/PI1.PDF.

That’s a gnarly string, so if you have the book and care to double check my typing, I’d be obliged. I can’t help but wonder (warning: impending conspiracy theory alert) if all that documentation proved inconvenient to the major pharmaceutical corporations–such as Sanofi Pasteur, a leading producer of flu vaccines–that partner with the ALA on projects like Faces of Influenza, a very sober, very scary site that reminds us, “Chances are, you or someone in your family are one of the over 250 million — that’s 4 out of 5 — Americans who health-care officials recommend get a flu shot each year.” Jeebus. That’s brought to you by the American Lung Association. No wonder we can’t find the article in question any longer.

I did find an archived copy of the final resource Sears cited for his data on flu deaths among infants and children. The 2005 article from the The New England Journal of Medicine is here. The paper identifies 153 flu-related deaths among infants and children during flu season 2003-2004. This number would seem to corroborate Dr. Sears’ conclusion that actual U.S. deaths from the flu are largely distorted, and it would support the overall conclusion that parents need not live in fear of the flu. The authors of the NEJM paper, however, state a different conclusion:

A substantial number of influenza-associated deaths occurred among U.S. children during the 2003–2004 influenza season. High priority should be given to improvements in influenza-vaccine coverage and improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of influenza to reduce childhood mortality from influenza.

Huh. 153 deaths translates to high priority? The 2000 U.S. Census projected roughly 72 million children in the United States in 2003-2004. The Census Bureau even breaks that number down for us, so we can see that there were between 23.6 and 23.9 million children under the age of 5 during the 2003-2004 flu season. Even out of that reduced number, 153 equals high priority? Now I have to wonder who funded that NEJM report. During 2003, the National Center for Child Death Review Policy and Practice determined that over 14,000 U.S. children died from perinatal conditions alone, or basic care at and around the time of birth. Most of these deaths could have been prevented through improved health access, nutrition, and eduction for pregnant and new mothers. I guess “high priority” is a relative term.

So what’s the takeaway? Well, the flu alone, by all outward appearances, does not seem as scary as the government and the big pharma lobby would have us believe. And sources are to be carefully considered before being taken as reliable. Even Dr. Sears’ credibility comes into question–see here and here–because his alternative vaccine schedule would conveniently result in patients spending more money on doctor visits for separate injections that would normally be grouped together. I’ve read those criticisms, and I’ve read The Vaccine Book, and I have to say that Sears’ detractors aren’t quite as convincing as Sears’ arguments. But then again my bias is toward less medical intervention and fewer chemicals in our bodies, not more.