DID
THE FEDERAL GOV'T. HIDE A FLU EPIDEMIC IN 1993 AND WHY?
By Bill Sardi
August 17, 2009
NewsWithViews.com
For
decades now, since the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic, US life expectancy
has progressively risen. But federal government documents reveal a sudden
unexplained increase in the US death rate in 1993, so severe as to cause
a decline in US life expectancy for the first time in over 8 decades.
Examine the chart below (Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2004 -- National
Center for Health Statistics)
Nearly
93,000 more deaths were reported in 1993 than the previous year. My
memory bank didn’t recall any outstanding disease or epidemic
back then.
What
was the cause of this severe increase in the death rate? I began to
investigate.
Not
caused by a non-infectious disease
The
Monthly Vital Statistics Report said death rates for HIV infection (9.8%),
COPD-chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (8.2%) and pneumonia/influenza
(8.1%) rose steeply from 1992 to 1993. However, the ten leading causes
of death didn’t change over that time period. The Centers for
Disease Control said deaths due to heart disease, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease (COPD), HIV infection and pneumonia/influenza as well
as diabetes made the largest contributions to the overall mortality
increase. The cause(s) of the increase in the death rate were spread
among various diseases by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), far
too broad to explain any single cause. Not a word was said about this
startling setback in life expectancy.
But
that same government document said some of these increases in chronic
disease (diabetes, heart disease, COPD) were “the result of
the two influenza epidemics of 1993.” [Page 9, Monthly Vital
Statistics Report, Volume 44, No 7(S), Feb. 29, 1996]
1993:
Two flu epidemics
What
two flu epidemics is the report referring to?
A
CDC review of mortality patterns in 1993 also states “the
decline in life expectancy likely reflects increases in death rates
for chronic disease during the two influenza outbreaks of 1993.”
[Morbidity Mortality Weekly 45:08), 1161-64, March 1, 1996] There it
is again, confirmation that two flu epidemics in the same year caused
an increase in deaths with an admission it resulted in a decline in
the life expectancy of Americans.
Timeline
of historical flu outbreaks
Americans
may be roughly familiar with the historical timeline of flu outbreaks
provided in the chart below. The chart has been adapted to show the
severity of each influenza outbreak and also the SARS coronavirus pandemic
of 2003. I have added the 1993 flu outbreaks to the chart.
Note
that the 1993 flu outbreak which resulted in nearly 93,000 more deaths
than the prior year resulted in more deaths than the well-known Asian
and Hong Kong flu pandemics and would be second only to the Spanish
Flu pandemic of 1918 in comparable deaths. The Spanish flu had temporarily
set back US life expectancy gains from 50.9 years to 39.1 years. Of
course, this was the pre-antibiotic era. There were no anti-bacterial
or anti-viral drugs then.
According
to charts provided by the CDC and other health organizations, it’s
as if there was no flu epidemic in the US in 1993. I had to dig deep
into the health reports of that year to find further confirmation that
it was the flu, and no other disease, that caused the American life
expectancy to steeply decline for one year.
Data
showed only 3,430 more deaths among HIV-infected residents then the
prior year. [Morbidity Mortality 45: 121-25, 1996] Another study showed
only 254 excess flu deaths among person with HIV for 1992-93 and only
191 the following year. [Archives Internal Medicine 161: 441-46, 2001]
So HIV-infected persons, through at higher risk for death from the flu,
cannot explain the unusual number of deaths attributed to influenza
in 1993.
It’s
also possible that flu vaccination rates declined in that year, but
a quick search on Google found evidence to the contrary. Vaccination
rates were rising while the flu outbreak of 1993 proceeded. (See chart
below)
It
struck elderly nursing home residents. But why?
So
I began to re-read a government document I had flagged with a red paperclip
during my investigation. A flu surveillance report published by the
CDC states that the “1992-93 influenza season was dominated
by influenza B, but increasing circulation of influenza A (H3N2) viruses
toward the end of the season” which struck nursing home populations
with deadly consequences.
For reference, type-A flu viruses are the most virulent and most common. Type B are less common but almost exclusively strike humans.
For reference, type-A flu viruses are the most virulent and most common. Type B are less common but almost exclusively strike humans.
The
report went on to say that influenza B viruses predominated early in
the season and were mainly limited to school-age children, and “no
excess mortality was observed.” Then sustained excess mortality
began in mid-March of 1993 and coincided with outbreaks in nursing homes.
[Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report 46: (SS1), 1-12, Jan 31, 1997]
Like
the more recent swine flu outbreak which began in Mexico, the second
flu bout in 1993 began late in the season.
For
comparison, the Mexico swine flu virus began in March or April of 2009
whereas the second 1993 flu outbreak began in March and peaked even
later in August and September. The pathogenic virus involved in 1993
was identified as Type A H3N2 A/Beijing/32/92 strain. [Morbidity Mortality
Weekly March 18, 1994 / 43(10); 179-183]
Still,
why would the government hide such an epidemic, particularly the second
one in 1993? I had no clue.
Free
flu shots begin in 1993
I
had uncovered much of this information over two years ago. But the reason
for the cover-up remained elusive until I read a Health & Human
Services press release issued in 1999. It said that Medicare coverage
for flu shots for the elderly began in 1993 as the Administration launched
an effort to increase immunization rates among older adults. The shots
were free for those enrolled in Medicare Part B. The release can be
found here:
The
big difference from prior years was that elderly Americans were getting
free flu shots.
According
to The Vaccine Guide (North Atlantic Books, 2002), during the 1992-1993
season, 84 percent of samples for the predominant type A virus in circulation
in the US population were not similar to the virus in the vaccine. The
flu vaccine that year would be largely worthless. But that wouldn’t
explain such a huge increase in deaths, particularly in nursing home
populations that apparently hadn’t received flu shots in prior
years due to lack of provisional funding.
There
was a very slight increase in the risk for Guillain-Barré syndrome
in the period 1992 to 1994 from flu shots (one additional case per million
persons vaccinated). [New England Journal of Medicine 339: 1797-802,
1998] This would still not be sufficient to produce a setback in life
expectancy.
A
death vaccine?
Now
the big question comes to mind. Was the flu vaccine in 1993 lethal in
some way? This could be the only explanation as to why this deadly flu
outbreak has been hidden from the public. If so, it would be a severe
blow to the nation’s flu vaccination program.
There
is a hint of evidence in Europe that either a deadly flu virus or a
“death vaccine” was in circulation that year. Dutch
National Influenza Centrum reported that nursing home residents in 1993
experienced a severe outbreak of the flu that struck 49% of them and
caused 10% to die. That’s a death rate four times greater than
the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The cause of the deaths was attributed
to the Type A H3N2 flu viral strain. [Ned Tijdschr Geneeskd 1993 Sep
25; 137(39):1973-7]
Could
there have been some deadly vaccine in use in the US in 1993? So-called
“hot” lots of vaccines are not a matter of public
record. Flu vaccines inject a “little bit of disease”
to provoke the production of antibodies and produce long-term resistance
to a particular strain of the flu. Nursing
home patients are often frail and immune compromised. Every flu vaccine
is a new invention, produced in advance of the next flu season and usually
comprised of a new combination of three viral strains that virologists
believe will be in circulation during the upcoming flu season. The three
viral strains in these trivalent vaccines could have been deadly to
frail elderly patients.
It
is often stated that flu vaccines are comprised of “dead”
or “attenuated” viruses. In fact, viruses are not
alive, they are proteins and genetic material that require a host cell
for replication. Virulent flu viruses are “grown” in mammalian
eggs until less virulent strains are produced, which are then used in
vaccines.
In
the process of making a vaccine in this manner, a hidden virus may be
introduced, such as the Simian 40 virus that was mistakenly introduced
in the polio vaccine some years ago. New methods of making vaccines
would eliminate this problem. But was a deadly combination of viruses
hidden in the flu vaccine used in 1993? Certainly no flu vaccine manufacturer
would admit to that.
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The
FDA has been lax in its monitoring of flu manufacturing facilities.
For example, in December of 2000 The Idaho Observer noted that Medeva,
a British flu vaccine maker, had received a warning letter from the
US FDA over filthy conditions in its manufacturing plant, but the FDA
had given the green light to sell 20 million doses of its “Fluvarin”
flu vaccine in the US in that same
year without re-inspecting the plant.
© 2009
- Bill Sardi
- All Rights Reserved
Bill
Sardi is the president of Knowledge of Health, Inc. San Dimas, California.
Bill
Sardi's books.
E-mail:
BSardi@aol.com
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