Remember Michael Fumento? He's the guy who says the Atkins diet doesn't work.
Well, he's at it again. He now claims that SARS isn't really a threat, that it's a scam to scare up more dollars for biotech companies.
But there's fame, fortune, and big budgets in sounding the "emerging infection" alarm and warning of our terrible folly in being unprepared. The classic example is Ebola virus, which is terribly hard to catch, remains in Africa where it's always been, is now usually non-fatal, and – despite what reporters love to relate – does not turn the victims' internal organs "into mush."Yet you'd almost swear that every outbreak of Ebola in Africa is actually taking place in Chicago. Laurie Garrett rode Ebola onto the bestseller list and talk show circuit with her book The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World out of Balance.
Since then, the U.S. government and various universities have also seen these faux plagues as budget boosters. The CDC publishes a journal called Emerging Infectious Diseases, though in any given issue it's hard to find an illness that actually fits the definition.
Apparently, the WHO is jumping on the scam bandwagon.
As a result of ongoing assessments as to the nature of outbreaks of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in Beijing and Shanxi Province, China, and in Toronto, Canada, WHO is now recommending, as a measure of precaution, that persons planning to travel to these destinations consider postponing all but essential travel. This temporary advice, which is an extension of travel advice previously issued for Guangdong Province and Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, China will be reassessed in three weeks time.
As is the Chinese government:
It said all primary and secondary schools in the capital would be closed for two weeks from Thursday, a move which will affect an estimated 1.7 million children.
Armies of disinfection squads in masks and rubber gloves and armed with spray guns spritzed down airports and planes, buses and terminals, trains and stations across the nation.
Earlier, the government shortened its Golden Week holiday in early May to discourage travel and prevent the further spread of SARS. But that will mean far less expenditure during one of the country's most popular vacation times.
Who knew the WHO was in league with the pharmas and biotech companies? To say nothing of the Chinese government which will lose billions in revenues over the SARS flap.
Current WHO estimates assign a mortality rate of 6% to SARS, while Fumento prefers a more conservative 4%. Others put the number much higher, as high as 15-20%, which is comparable to the flu epidemic which killed 20 million in 1918. For the sake of argument,let's use Fumento's number. He implies that 4% isn't all that bad, and that seems reasonable until you look at the the mortality rate in the US for all flu/pneumonia cases, which is .024%. Suddenly, 4% looks a lot bigger.
Fumento passes this off as due to poor healthcare availability, yet Canada is facing a greater than 10% mortality rate, with 15 deaths out of 140 reported cases.
To be fair, Fumento wrote his article before the Chinese gov't came clean and admitted the true extent of the problem, but I haven't seen or heard him issuing any retractions or clarifications.
I'm beginning to think that Fumento takes up a contrarian position reflexively, rather than from conviction. After all, you don't get headlines by agreeing with everybody. I think his credibility ranks right up there with The Center for Science in the Public Interest. They're the geniuses who figured out that fast food is bad for you. On second thought, they were right about that. Fumento slips further down the credibility ladder. Next stop, used car salesmen.
Posted by Rich at April 24, 2003 3:08 PM | TrackBackRich,
I'm wondering what that crow you're eating tastes like. Almost half a year into the epidemic and there have been a grand total of 8421 cases and 784 deaths. That's about the same number of people who died just today each from malaria and TB. There were only 21 new cases reported yesterday and the death rate is dropping. WHO figures also show the epidemic peaked around the end of April; in other words, right at the same time you made your posting.
Isn't it sad that there are people out there with such one-dimensional minds that when the entire media get it wrong except for one guy, they feel they have to pee on him?
Sincerely,
Michael Fumento
Crow doesn't taste too bad, as long as you roast it with a little salt.
However, any flu with an overall mortality rate of almost 10% is worthy of concern. Showing that concern is not fear mongering, or chasing dollars and ratings, as you characterized the concern shown by the WHO and the CDC. Indeed, it is highly likely that the reaction by those organizations prevented the toll from going significantly higher.
Additionally, you might want to check out this post, dated May 8. http://64.21.37.2/~rhailey/archives/001653.html#001653
Notice anything odd? Either China developed a much better treatment for cases of SARS, or they are seriously underreporting deaths due to the disease. Which do you think is more likely? As I recall, in your first article you suggested that high death rates were skewed by China, and attributed that to China's poor health care system. That would tend to support the latter hypothesis, wouldn't you agree? And in that case, based on total cases reported, the death toll in China should approximately triple, which ramps the mortality rate to about 15%, comparable to the flu epidemic of 1918.
In short, your contention that the world wide concern over SARS was motivated by greed rather than an actual assessment of the dangers is unfounded. SARS represented a legitimate threat, and was dealt with accordingly. Your insistance on looking only at total number of infections and total mortality produces an incomplete picture of the severity of the disease. You have to consider the mortality rate as well, and compare that rate to similar infectious diseases. Only then do you get a full picture of the seriousness of SARS.
Posted by: rich on June 9, 2003 10:38 PM