UPDATED with Maryn McKenna’s Post (see bottom)
# 4837
We’ve a couple of more items of interest revolving around the report issued today by the CDC on influenza-related deaths from seasonal flu (see MMWR: Estimates Of Yearly Seasonal Influenza Deaths).
First, the CDC has posted a Q&A page on the study, called:
Questions & Answers
Estimating Seasonal Influenza-Associated Deaths in the United States: CDC Study Confirms Variability of Flu
And second, Lisa Schnirring of CIDRAP news has an overview of the MMWR report and details from today’s pre-release press conference.
CDC's new seasonal flu death estimates reflect disease variability
Lisa Schnirring
Staff Writer
Aug 26, 2010 (CIDRAP News) – The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released new death estimates for seasonal flu today that are designed to move away from a single number and instead take into account the disease's unpredictability and the extra toll inflicted when influenza A H3N2 is the dominant strain.
A 2003 CDC estimate of 36,000 flu deaths a year has been used by the media and some researchers as a general benchmark, but some experts have criticized that use of the number, because it is likely to overestimate deaths, given that the estimate is based on flu seasons during the 1990s when H3N2 was the main circulating strain during eight of nine flu seasons.
The challenge will be in finding ways to portray these revised estimates in the media, since there is no easy `number’ to toss out as has been done so often in the past.
Admittedly still a bit rough, but I suppose I’ll try to employ language such as:
Most years, influenza-related illness claims tens of thousands of lives in the United States - but that number can vary widely depending on the strain in circulation – along with many other factors.
or
Over the past 3 decades flu-associated deaths in the United States ranged from a low of about 3,000 to a high of about 49,000 people with the higher numbers seen in years when H3N2 predominated.
While these may sound like vague answers, they take into account the extreme variability of influenza, and so they are actually truer depictions of burden of flu-related deaths each year in the United States.
They just don’t fit easily into a sound bite.
UPDATED: 2040hrs EST 8/26
Author and journalist Maryn McKenna has weighed in on these new numbers on her Superbug Blog, outlining her concerns over how the media can convey these revised estimates to the public.
As my examples given above prove, it is going to be a bit awkward. But Maryn delves far deeper into the dilemma these numbers present for journalists in:
New CDC flu numbers: This may not go well
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