By Dr. Barry Sears

We have been deluged with reports of the coming swine flu pandemic and the potential deaths of thousands, if not millions. Like any good bureaucratic action, the response has been “shoot, ready, aim”.

So what are the real facts about swine flu? First, at least half the Mexicans who died from the “swine flu” never had the swine flu. Second, more than 12,000 Americans die from the flu every year. That’s more than 1,000 per month even after considering flu shots.

With this as a backdrop, the World Health Organization (WHO) has called for a costly mobilization against this coming epidemic. The U.S. government has committed $1.5 billion (about 5 percent of the total annual money spent on medical research) to combat this “pandemic” and also to make millions of doses of a specific vaccine (that will take at least six months to make and that will go to market without any testing) all in the fear that another 1918 flu pandemic that took millions of lives is on the way.

Unfortunately, no one seems to have read an article in last year’s Journal of Infectious Diseases (2008 Oct. 1;198(7):962-70) that indicated that the millions of deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic were not due to the flu but caused by bacterial pneumonia. As the head of the National Institutes of Infective Diseases, Dr. Antony Fauci, said, “In essence, the virus landed the first blow while bacteria delivered the knockout punch.” Since Dr. Fauci is also the head of the government’s AIDS program, one might have asked him if he would like to take $1.5B out of the HIV research budget to make vaccines for a strain of flu that has caused nowhere near the predicted death rates projected by the media.

There is a world-wide pandemic that no one seems concerned about. This is the pandemic of toxic fat (i.e. excess arachidonic acid) and the spread of silent inflammation. Ground zero for this epidemic is the heartland of America where we have the largest producers of the cheap refined carbohydrates and cheap refined vegetable oils. Put these two food ingredients together, and you have the Perfect Nutritional Storm. This means literally millions of people suffering from early mortality due to diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Too bad this pandemic doesn’t get any media notice as well as a rapid response from bureaucrats, especially those in the Department of Agriculture.