Sunday, May 17, 2009

The WHO and the Flu, Part II

Did the World Health Organization overreact to the outbreak of the flu formerly known as swine flu, to the point of panic, in cranking up the flu-threat level to one notch below Defcon 1?

My post here Friday had a brief look at that, based on the evidence that the H1N1 virus, while spreading, seems to be associated with a fairly mild strain of flu.

Dunno.

But there's a letter worth reading in the Times this morning. It's from a physician associated with the conservative Hoover Institution. He says the WHO response seems to have been "alarmist" and driven by "excessive risk-aversion" predicated on experiences during (and possibly fallout after) the 2002-2003 SARS outbreak in Asia.

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