CDC Still Playing Fast and Loose With Deaths— This Time with Children

CDC Has Not Yet Received the Memo that The Era of Fear-Based Messaging is Over. It's Time for Medicine to Learn of Protocols that Save Lives.

On April 26, 2025, the CDC issued its Week 17 FluView report with a headline figure: 216 children have died this influenza season, the highest recorded in any non-pandemic year. Within hours, the number was elevated into national headlines. MedPage Today and The Associated Press quickly reframed the data as an indictment of parental vaccine hesitancy. “The decline in vaccinations is certainly playing a role,” asserted Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

But as with so many COVID-era narratives, this one unfolds with a familiar flaw: the assertion of causality without evidence, and fear-based messaging that races ahead of the data.

Influenza-Associated ≠ Influenza-Caused

The CDC’s pediatric death counts are based not on confirmed flu-caused fatalities, but on “influenza-associated deaths”—a term that quietly conflates the presence of virus with the cause of death. A child may have died from RSV, bacterial pneumonia, or complications of a chronic condition like leukemia, but if influenza virus was detected via PCR or antigen test at any point, the CDC includes the case in its total.

In clinical medicine, influenza disease is a diagnosis based on systemic symptoms, respiratory failure, and inflammatory pathology. But the CDC’s use of “influenza-associated” includes any child with a positive flu test near the time of death, even if the flu was not the proximate cause.

The CDC’s Week 17 FluView report classifies the 216 pediatric deaths as “influenza-associated,” but provides no clinical confirmation that these deaths were caused by the virus. The term itself leaves open a diagnostic loophole: any child who dies and tests positive for influenza is included, even if the cause of death was pneumonia, RSV, sepsis, or an unrelated chronic condition. No causality threshold is mentioned. No exclusion of coinfections is confirmed. By using ‘influenza-associated’ rather than “influenza-caused,” the CDC allows statistical attribution to replace diagnostic certainty.

According to the CDC’s own report, pediatric deaths are counted as “influenza-associated” if the influenza virus was detected—by PCR or rapid antigen test—in a child who subsequently died. No clinical confirmation of causality is required. The virus’s presence is enough to include the case in the official count, even when it may not have been the proximate or contributory cause of death.

No autopsies are required. No chart reviews. No physician-confirmed attribution. The classification hinges entirely on viral detection—not disease. Yet, these unconfirmed associations are being held up as justification for aggressive policy and public messaging.

CDC’s Criterion for Influenza-Associated Pediatric Deaths

From the report:

“Twelve influenza-associated pediatric deaths... Ten deaths were associated with influenza A viruses. Eight of the influenza A viruses had subtyping performed; four were A(H1N1) and four were A(H3N2). Two deaths were associated with influenza B viruses with no lineage determined.”

Critically:

• There is no statement that influenza was the primary cause of death.

• Deaths are included based on laboratory confirmation of influenza virus presence.

• CDC defines a pediatric death as “influenza-associated” if there is a positive flu test in a child who dies, regardless of clinical course, coinfections, or comorbidities.

No Disclosure of Vaccination Status

Despite intense emphasis on vaccination rates, the CDC did not report whether any of the 216 children were vaccinated. That data, if available, has not been released in FluView or any accompanying materials.

This omission is not a minor technicality—it is a foundational flaw. Without knowing how many of the deceased children were vaccinated, it is impossible to draw any connection between declining vaccination rates and rising deaths. It is equally plausible that many of the children were vaccinated and still died, in which case, the vaccine’s role as a preventive measure would need to be re-examined.

Co-infections and Comorbidities Not Disclosed

Among 2,073 hospitalized children, 52.6% had at least one underlying medical condition, most commonly asthma, neurologic disorders, and obesity. But the CDC report provides no such breakdown for the 216 children who died.

It also offers no data on viral co-infections, despite acknowledging that RSV, human metapneumovirus, and SARS-CoV-2 were all actively circulating this season.

A child with influenza and RSV, for instance, may have experienced lethal inflammation primarily due to RSV—yet the death would still be attributed to flu under current CDC definitions. These confounding variables are not ruled out, and the CDC does not appear to be investigating them, at least not transparently.

It is precisely this kind of deliberate vagueness that signals a public health apparatus more concerned with controlling the narrative than informing the public.

Real-World Vaccine Effectiveness Not Reported: Negative Efficacy in Seniors Ignored by CDC

According to the CDC, this year’s flu vaccine was well-matched: 99.4% of H1N1 strains and 98.5% of B/Victoria strains showed strong antigenic similarity, and 60% of H3N2 strains were moderately matched. These figures are drawn from laboratory assays using ferret antisera. But lab-match does not equate to real-world clinical protection.

There are no published vaccine effectiveness (VE) data against pediatric mortality for the 2024–2025 season. VE estimates against hospitalization in children reportedly range from 63% to 78%, but no outcome-linked data have been made public for the children who died.

Historically, flu VE has been inconsistent and strain-dependent, sometimes dropping as low as 15% in children during H3N2-dominant seasons. Protection against death is even harder to measure and virtually never reported.

There is historical evidence, especially from the early 2000s onward, that as influenza vaccine uptake increased among seniors, influenza- and pneumonia-coded deaths also increased, not decreased. This paradox has been well-documented in multiple analyses and has long troubled independent epidemiologists.

Most notably:

• A 2005 study by Peter Doshi published in BMJ (“Are US flu death figures more PR than science?”) showed that pneumonia and influenza mortality in the elderly rose in parallel with increased flu vaccination coverage from the late 1980s to early 2000s.

• The CDC’s own data demonstrated that even after near-saturation of vaccine uptake among seniors (upwards of 65–70% coverage), mortality did not decline, and in some seasons, it increased.

• Critics rightly questioned whether the vaccine was providing the population-level protection that policymakers claimed—or whether attribution drift, misclassification, or failure to prevent severe outcomes was being masked by optimistic messaging.

If we are now witnessing a similar pattern in children—where increasing flu vaccine promotion and coverage coincide with either stagnant or increasing mortality—then yes: that is ethically and scientifically alarming.

And it raises a deeply unsettling possibility:

If mortality rises with vaccine uptake in a vulnerable population, is it because:

1. The vaccine is not effective in that population?

2. Other structural failures (e.g., delayed care, social determinants) are overriding potential benefits?

3. We are over-attributing deaths to flu because the vaccinated are more likely to be tested or hospitalized?

4. Or—worst of all—there are unintended iatrogenic effects at play?

None of these questions are being addressed by the CDC. Instead, they’re doubling down on behavioral messaging without even asking whether more of the same is actually helping—or harming.

Surveillance Systems Not Built for Causation

The data feeding these narratives are derived from surveillance tools like ILINet, FluSurv-NET, and NCHS mortality data. These systems track symptoms, lab test positivity, and death certificates—but none are designed to establish cause of death.

ILINet, for instance, reports trends in influenza-like illness (ILI), not confirmed flu cases. Death certificates reflect whatever was written by the attending physician—who may list flu without lab confirmation, particularly in cases with overlapping symptoms or hospital policies that encourage attribution.

Yet public health officials use these passive, trend-based surveillance systems to imply definitive conclusions about causality, when the data are ecological, not clinical.

Historical Pattern of Inflated Flu Deaths

The CDC has long promoted annual flu death ranges of 20,000–80,000—but these numbers are based on statistical models, not direct counts. In fact, the actual number of lab-confirmed flu deaths among U.S. adults in recent years hovers around 4,000–5,000. Pediatric deaths in pre-pandemic years were often in the 100–200 range, not thousands.

These inflated models include deaths coded under pneumonia and influenza, assume a background level of flu circulation, and then attribute a share of pneumonia deaths back to flu, even without confirmation. As far back as 2005, researchers like Peter Doshi and Tom Jefferson flagged these practices as methodologically flawed and ethically dubious.

During COVID-19, flu all but vanished from surveillance reports. In 2020–2021, pediatric flu deaths dropped to single digits, while COVID deaths surged. As I documented in “Is the CDC Borrowing Pneumonia Deaths from Flu for COVID-19?”, this pattern reflected a diagnostic substitution, not a true disappearance.

Now, as COVID’s political salience wanes, we appear to be seeing the reverse substitution: deaths that would have been labeled COVID in 2021 are now being coded as influenza, with no more diagnostic rigor than before. The question of the diagnostic criterion for influenza-associated deaths is underscored by the distinction between “influenza” and “influenza-disease”.

The Media’s Failure to Ask Questions

In MedPage Today’s May 2, 2025 piece, “Pediatric Flu Deaths Hit Record High in 2024-2025 Season”, the outlet echoed the CDC’s claim of 216 pediatric deaths and quoted Dr. Sean O’Leary asserting that “the decline in vaccinations is certainly playing a role.” No evidence was presented. No vaccination data were cited. No follow-up questions were asked.

Despite the absence of case-level data, MedPage Today and other outlets repeated the CDC’s claims without scrutiny. No journalist asked how many of the children were vaccinated. No one questioned whether autopsies were conducted. No one asked whether RSV or other viruses were involved.

The quote from Dr. O’Leary—“The decline in vaccinations is certainly playing a role”—was reported as gospel truth, despite lacking any basis in evidence or data in the CDC report supporting the claim. The public was left with a policy conclusion masquerading as a scientific one.

This is not health and medicine journalism—it is crisis narrative laundering.

The Ethical Line Has Been Crossed

If public health agencies invoke a child's death to justify a national campaign, they owe the public—and grieving families—the truth. They must show that the flu vaccine would have prevented those deaths, that the children died from flu and not just with it, and that their claims are based on evidence, not assumptions.

But none of that has been done. What we have instead is statistical theater, in which deaths become props and numbers become persuasion tools.

This is not public health. It is policy laundering through tragedy.

CDC Has Not Yet Received the Memo: The Era of Fear-Based Messaging Is Over

Every child’s death is a tragedy. But tragedy must not become a narrative weapon. The CDC continues to lean on emotional leverage while avoiding the most basic analytical obligations: disclose vaccination status, confirm clinical causation, rule out confounders, and release real-world effectiveness data.

Until then, we remain in a performance—one that trades on trust without earning it.

The parents and families of the children who have died with influenza virus deserve to know the fundamental truth about their loved one’s cause of death, however complicated. We know that 47% of the hospitalized children had no underlying condition, implying 53% did— which matters if those deaths involved complicating factors where flu might not be the proximate cause.

If we are to restore credibility to public health, we must demand data first, message second.

We owe it to the children who died. We need to ask naturopathic, integrative and holistic medical doctors how they are successful in treating respiratory infections. The Brownstein protocol especially deserves to be studied in hospitalized patients of all ages. And to the ones we hope to protect.

How many of these deaths could have been prevented via nebulized peroxide/iodine, ozone injection, and high dose nutritional therapies? It’s time to overhaul how infections, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths are reported for infectious disease- and how influenza is treated. Public health and medicine are on notice; the deaths are in indictment of their oversimplified view of respiratory infections. We can, and we must do better.