In a lame attempt to get a certain terbite to stop his mindless ranting about how H1N1 was going to be a modern day disaster I proposed a bet whereby if H1N1 deaths to Decemeber 31 were less than 1,000 he would pay $100 to a charity of my choice and if they were more I would pay the same to a charity of his choice. It was the last thing I could think of to get him to shut up and stop calling everyone who disagreed with him an idiot, or words to that effect.
Now when challenged I'm not absolutely sure if this person actually accepted the bet but it was fairly clear that he didn't change his position, and despite his claim that he never gets angry, I'm also fairly certain that CG and/or I had him hot under the collar on at least a few occasions.
The 1,000 was based on this being approximately 1/3 the number of annual deaths estimated to be caused by seasonal flu ( the head of public health in Canda estimates it to be between 2,000 and 8,000 depending on the year).
Well the results are over and the total deaths were a little over 400, so even less than I thought they would be
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/alert-alerte/h1n1/surveillance-eng.php
So if honour is any part of his values I would request that the $100 be paid to Princess Margaret Hospital and earmarked for any of their clinical research projects.
My main objection to the over-hyping of H1N1 by the sky-is-falling zealots was the misdirecting of scarce health care resources. Due in no small part to the the media created histeria hundreds of millions of dollars ( some estimate Canada spent $1 billion) was spent in a relatively short period of time. Yes I'm sure it saved lives but maybe with a little sanity $500 million would have been enough and we wouldn't have millions of unused vaccine does left over. The other $500 million could have been spent on other deseases that cause far more deaths and suffering. Like cancer.
Some other random points to ponder:
US deaths are estimated at about 12,000 or about 1/3 of annual seasonal flu death totals. A far cry from the 30,000 to 60,000 so called "experts" told Obama it would be.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm#Table
There may be an ethnic differential with Latinos being hit harder than whites which may partially explain initial Mexican rates
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-me-h1n1-stats15-2010jan15,0,211614.story
The Globe & Mail, which was one of the papers most guilty of overhype published a news article slanted to support WHO but points out that WHO has drawn significant criticism, primarily in Europe where investigations and debate by the parlimentary assembly of the Council of Europe will begin at the end of January titled Faked Pandemics: a threat to health care.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...at-it-exaggerated-h1n1-threat/article1431667/
What seems clear that after crying wolf twice in 5 years with Avian flu and now Swine flu there is some credibility repair necessary with many.
Now when challenged I'm not absolutely sure if this person actually accepted the bet but it was fairly clear that he didn't change his position, and despite his claim that he never gets angry, I'm also fairly certain that CG and/or I had him hot under the collar on at least a few occasions.
The 1,000 was based on this being approximately 1/3 the number of annual deaths estimated to be caused by seasonal flu ( the head of public health in Canda estimates it to be between 2,000 and 8,000 depending on the year).
Well the results are over and the total deaths were a little over 400, so even less than I thought they would be
http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/alert-alerte/h1n1/surveillance-eng.php
So if honour is any part of his values I would request that the $100 be paid to Princess Margaret Hospital and earmarked for any of their clinical research projects.
My main objection to the over-hyping of H1N1 by the sky-is-falling zealots was the misdirecting of scarce health care resources. Due in no small part to the the media created histeria hundreds of millions of dollars ( some estimate Canada spent $1 billion) was spent in a relatively short period of time. Yes I'm sure it saved lives but maybe with a little sanity $500 million would have been enough and we wouldn't have millions of unused vaccine does left over. The other $500 million could have been spent on other deseases that cause far more deaths and suffering. Like cancer.
Some other random points to ponder:
US deaths are estimated at about 12,000 or about 1/3 of annual seasonal flu death totals. A far cry from the 30,000 to 60,000 so called "experts" told Obama it would be.
http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm#Table
There may be an ethnic differential with Latinos being hit harder than whites which may partially explain initial Mexican rates
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-me-h1n1-stats15-2010jan15,0,211614.story
The Globe & Mail, which was one of the papers most guilty of overhype published a news article slanted to support WHO but points out that WHO has drawn significant criticism, primarily in Europe where investigations and debate by the parlimentary assembly of the Council of Europe will begin at the end of January titled Faked Pandemics: a threat to health care.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...at-it-exaggerated-h1n1-threat/article1431667/
What seems clear that after crying wolf twice in 5 years with Avian flu and now Swine flu there is some credibility repair necessary with many.