Government Knew of Mexican Swine Flu 18 Days Before Warning us!
Posted on Friday, May 01 @ 09:08:27 EDT
Topic: Diseases Biohazards illegal immigration
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 Company warned officials of flu 18 days before alert was issued
April 30, 2009
By Les Blumenthal of McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — A Washington state biosurveillance firm raised the first
warning about a possible outbreak of swine flu in Mexico more than two
weeks before the World Health Organization offered its initial alert
about a public health emergency of international concern.
Both federal and international health officials had access to the
warning from Veratect Corp. Later e-mails calling attention to the
company's subsequent report that the disease was possibly spreading in
Mexico were sent to 10 officials of the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, said Robert Hart, the company's chief executive.
Topics: Mexico, Mexican Flu, World Health Organization, Veratect Corporation, US Government, WHO, World Health Organization
Hart said he wasn't sure why health officials didn't act sooner.
"They have a lot of other responsibilities," Hart said on Thursday. "But every day makes a difference."
CDC officials in Atlanta said they were aware of Veratect's claims and hadn't been working with the company.
"We have nothing to add about their claims," said CDC spokesman Llelwyn
Grant, adding that the CDC and other public health agencies had plans
in place to deal with a flu pandemic and responded rapidly once they
became aware of the Mexican outbreak.
Veratect, based in Kirkland, Wash., uses a technique known as "data
mining" to automatically search tens of thousands of Web sites daily
for early signs of looming medical problems or civil unrest anywhere in
the world. Anything of interest is turned over to a team of 35 analysts
to determine its significance and to post on the company's Web site.
The company markets access to its Web site to government agencies,
businesses and others and has tried unsuccessfully to sell its service
to the CDC, the World Health Organization and the Department of
Homeland Security.
Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., who talked with the CDC, the Department
of Homeland Security and other agencies as late as January about
Veratect, said the federal government had made a mistake in not
purchasing the company's program, especially in light of the flu
outbreak.
"I am very upset about this," Dicks said. "Not to have it is
totally ridiculous. This is a perfect example of why they needed this
and now we are paying a price."
Earlier this year, Hart said, Veratect gave free access to its Web site to the CDC and the WHO on a trial basis.
On April 6, 18 days before the WHO issued its alert, Veratect
reported on its Web site a strange outbreak of respiratory disease in
La Gloria, Mexico, noting that local residents thought the outbreak was
linked to contamination from pig breeding farms nearby.
Hart said the information was available to the CDC and many state
and local health authorities. The company's server showed an
epidemiologist at the Pan American Health Organization, which is part
of the World Health Organization, looked at the message about the La
Gloria outbreak twice, on April 10 and 11, Hart said.
Ten days after the warning was first issued, on April 16, Veratect
reported the disease was possibly spreading in Mexico with an
"unspecified number of atypical pneumonia cases" detected at a hospital
in Oaxaca. Because of the heightened concern, an automated e-mail was
sent to 10 people at the CDC to notify them the report was available.
With the outbreak apparently spreading, Hart said the company's
chief scientist, James Wilson, called people he knew at the CDC's
Emergency Operations Center on April 20 to alert them to what was
happening in Mexico. At that point, the CDC was focused on possible
swine flu events in Texas and California, and a physician at the
emergency operations center indicated the CDC was not aware of the
spreading outbreak in Mexico, Hart said.
"We thought this deserved immediate attention and they started looking at it," Hart said.
Four days later, the World Health Organization made its announcement.
Veratect's warnings came as President Barack Obama prepared for his
trip to Mexico, arriving in Mexico City on April 16. The White House
said Thursday that an Energy Department staffer who was part of the
advance team for Obama's visit is suspected of having contracted swine
flu in Mexico and transmitting it to his family in Maryland. White
House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the man, who wasn't identified, never
got within six feet of the president.
Hart said his company's system operated as it was supposed to.
"We don't make predictions," he said. "We give the earliest wisp of smoke before the fire."
Hart said he wasn't critical of the CDC or other health
organizations, adding that what was needed was an effective global
health monitoring system that Veratect should be a part of.
"Hindsight is great and it's hard to say whether (the delay)
altered anything," he said. "The only way to stop anything like this is
to break the cycle."
Others, however, cautioned that the use of data mining to track a
possible disease outbreak was untested and said a number of questions
about its effectiveness remained unanswered.
"This approach is not yet vetted," said Dr. Marguerite Neill, an
infectious disease specialist at Brown University and a spokeswoman for
the Infectious Disease Society of America. "It is an interesting idea,
but we haven't used it before."
Neill said the problem with using information picked up through
data mining was determining whether it was just an indication of a
routine disease outbreak or something much more serious.
"It needs to be put in a clinical or epidemiological context," she said. "I'm not sure Veratect can do that."
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