Yes, the CDC Lies About Flu Deaths. (Just Like COVID.)

Practice made perfect

By now, Americans—and much of the world—know that the CDC lies about a lot of things. One of the agency’s long-standing deceptions, which only grew worse in the years leading up to 2020, is the exaggerated “estimated” number of deaths caused by or “related to” influenza. Tom Jefferson and Carl Heneghan have addressed these exaggerations in the past and revisited the issue again in an article today. (I responded to Tom here.)

Dear US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention

My chief interest in flu concerns the “disappearance” of positive flu tests in 2020—an event I argue was

• intentional, not accidental, and not the result of viral interference or non-pharmaceutical interventions,¹ and

• a key component of the COVID-19 event, which I believe was, in part, an operation designed to off-ramp problematic flu shot technologies, obscure related morbidity and mortality issues, and sustain decades of deception about influenza and respiratory illness.

Here, I focus on flu-attributed deaths with points I’ve covered before but emphasize afresh to illustrate that what was done with “COVID-19” deaths was a higher-magnitude extension of what had already been happening with influenza deaths in the years leading up to 2020. (A more formal version of some of this content from a different angle is in this article.)

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In the past, journalists and researchers have leaned on the CDC’s inflated flu burden estimates to make claims like the one Alex Berenson made in October 2023, stating that the U.S. averages “35,000 flu deaths” annually.

The total number of U.S. deaths attributed to either an influenza virus or pneumonia (from bacterial or other causes) between 1999 and 2020 is shown below. Over those 20 years, both the raw number of P&I deaths and the crude mortality rate declined.

The next graph displays the raw number of pneumonia and influenza (“J Code”) deaths from 1999 to 2020. Pneumonia-coded deaths are shown in black, while influenza-coded deaths appear in pink. (For a detailed breakdown of codes from 2015 to 2022, see here.)

I'm no longer convinced that deaths can truly be caused by an influenza virus. Instead, there are deaths from pneumonia or complications involving pneumonia, with a portion conveniently “pinned” on influenza—thanks to testing.

For now, let’s assume there were roughly 50,000–60,000 pneumonia and influenza (P&I) deaths annually in the U.S.

Has the CDC been pushing the idea that a greater share of pneumonia deaths should be attributed to influenza but were missed due to no record of positive test? Or is the agency implicitly suggesting that deaths officially attributed to strokes, kidney disorders, or heart disease could have—or should have—been blamed on influenza instead?

If that sounds familiar, it’s because the same playbook was used for SARS-CoV-2: Positive tests for a newly named virus were used to (fraudulently) attribute cause of death to that virus.

While the scale of what happened with COVID-19 was unprecedented, it’s important to recognize that government agencies and organizations like the WHO rarely execute something of that magnitude without years of “practice” with more routine, lower-profile, mundane methods.

To my eyes, the U.S. flu surveillance program looks very much like a “proof-of-concept” program for the longstanding goal—shared by many public and private entities—of “having a pandemic.”

At the very least, it’s clear that an increasing number of pneumonia and influenza (P&I) deaths were being attributed to influenza as the underlying cause. The graph below shows this annual proportion as a percentage. Take note of the spikes in 2017 and 2018, coinciding with the “bad flu season” from September 2017 to May 2018.

What would the CDC and WHO have us believe was happening here?

• That influenza viruses were getting worse?

• That their “strain” predictions were increasingly off the mark?

• That decades of relentless flu shot experimentation still couldn’t keep up with 21st-century viruses?

If that’s the story they’re selling, I’m not buying it.

Here’s why (in part):

Between 1997 and 2021, the number of U.S. flu sentinels grew faster than the population. Total visits for influenza-like illness (ILI) increased as well. While there were clear spikes during the H1N1 scam (highlighted here and here), the steady expansion in the years leading up to 2020 is just as telling.

Not surprisingly, more sentinel sites and more visits classified as ILI lead to more specimens being tested for influenza viruses—and, consequently, more positive test results.

Put yourself in the position of a healthcare worker, public health employee, or pandemic preparedness champion: In retrospect, can you see how the flu data - typically delivered via weekly surveillance reports during “the season” - could convince you a pandemic is on the horizon?

One doesn’t need to be a scientist or a conspiracy theorist (or both!) to look at what was happening with flu sentinel sites and testing, alongside the rising number of deaths being blamed on influenza, and think, “What in the world was going on here? Were they searching for something? Planning for something? Covering up a few things?”

I’m again reminded of what the Society of Actuaries observed years ago regarding the rate of Alzheimer’s deaths in the US: Attribution of underlying cause toward Alzheimer’s has meant attribution away from other causes of death. The inverse relationship between Alzheimer attribution and P&I attribution among age 75+ over across two decades is remarkable, indeed. Since 2000, as the rate of one has gone up, the rate of the other has gone down.

I can’t demonstrate causality, of course, but I can ask questions such as:

• What is the relationship between increased funding for Alzheimer’s research and the number/rate of deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s?

• Is there an incentive to show that the flu shot is “working” or needed for elderly populations, leading to coding guidance that steered doctors and medical examiners away from attributing deaths to pneumonia—unless there was a positive flu test?

• Is Alzheimer’s an adverse effect of flu shots?

• In theory, if countries were covering up various harms caused by the flu shot—including compounded harms from recipients getting the flu shot year after year—“where” would such deaths show up? Under which codes or causes?

I don’t have all the answers, but one thing is clear: The CDC has lied about—and continues to lie about—flu deaths.

Just like they did—and still do—with “COVID.”

All flu-related Substack posts can be found here.

1. I agree with most of what the articles published on Where Are the Numbers? by

Martin Neil

Norman Fenton

Jonathan Engler

and others have concluded about “Vanishing Flu”. | My March 2023 thread about human interference being the culprit is here: https://x.com/Wood_House76/status/1635856560026009600