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The number 39,000 or 36,000 , or 32,000 comes from one man.

How does the CDC come up with 34,000 more flu victims? The number comes from a 2003 study led by William W. Thompson.

Death Rate of Regular Seasonal flu and Swine Flu compared

In 2003 the CDC starting claiming that 36,000 people a year died from regular flu. This number is constantly compared to the current pandemic to persuade people not to “panic” or be concerned. Where did this number come from?

According to twenty years’ worth of “cause of death” reporting data from the National Center for Health Statistics of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, influenza is the official cause of death for an average of 1,263 people in the United States each year. Indeed, the CDC’s most recent official tally of death by influenza indicates that only 849 people died of influenza in 2006. These very low numbers would seem to contradict the often cited figure of “36,000 flu-related deaths per year” in the United States, which appears on the CDC’s own web site.”

The 36,000 number comes from statistical modeling; comparing pneumonia or other similar deaths in the winter and summer. It is not derived from numbers of people known to have died from flu, or people tested for flu, or even generalized lists of people dying from flu. Additionally, 95% of flu deaths are of people above the age of 65, and most are even older. They are people who are already near death from others causes, seem to get sick with “something” and die.
On the other hand, the people really dying from swine flu are mostly younger people, many of who are perfectly healthy. It is true that swine flu is easier to catch as no one has ever had it before and therefore has no immunity to it.

Here’s a quick ‘snapshot’ of the numbers though.
http://www.lungusa.org/site/c.dvLUK9O0E/b.4061173/apps/s/content.asp?ct=67648

CAUSE OF DEATH INFLUENZA

1979 604
1981 3,006
1983 1,431
1985 2,054
1987 632
1989 1,593
1991 1,137
1993 1,044
1995 606
1996 745
1997 720
1998 1,724
1999 1,665
2000 1,765
2001 257
2002 727
2003 1,792
2004 1,100
2005 1,812

Apparently 36,000 influenza deaths per year in the U.S.A. is a myth that has been repeated so often it has been accepted as fact. However, according to the CDC’s own data, they can only confirm an average of 1,263 deaths due to influenza per year from 1979 through 2006.

This seems like a pretty fair account of how the CDC got caught up with the 36,000 figure.

http://www.slate.com/id/2218367/pagenum/all/

This is from the CDC’s website. So when someone quotes 36,000 deaths send them here:

How many people died from flu during the 2007-08 season?

Exact numbers of how many people died from flu this season cannot be determined. Flu-associated deaths (which have laboratory confirmed influenza), are only a nationally notifiable condition among children; however not all pediatric influenza deaths may be detected and reported and there is no requirement to report adult deaths from influenza. In addition, many people who die from flu complications are not tested, or they seek medical care later in their illness when flu can no longer be detected from respiratory samples. However, CDC tracks pneumonia and influenza (P&I) deaths through the 122 Cities Mortality Reporting System. This system collects information each week on the total number of death certificates filed in each of the 122 participating cities and the number of death certificates with pneumonia or influenza listed as a cause of death. The 122 Cities Mortality Reporting system helps gauge the severity of a flu season compared with other years. However, only a proportion of all P&I deaths are influenza-related and, as noted, most flu deaths are not lab confirmed. Thus, this system does not allow for an estimation of the number of deaths, only the relative severity among different influenza seasons. For the 2007-08 season, the proportion of deaths due to pneumonia and influenza was higher than the previous two years, but was similar to the 2004-05 season.

www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/season

In the U.S.A. the official flu season is six months long. Is that about right? So, if we really did have 36,000 annual deaths from “seasonal” influenza, that would be an average of 200 flu deaths per day for six straight months. Statistically, some days at the beginning and the end of the flu season might have zero deaths and some days at the peak of the season might see several hundred deaths. Wouldn’t several hundred flu deaths in a single day be newsworthy?

A few years ago, I was asked to help CDC develop a crisis management training program. Of course, the focus was on H5N1, the bird flu and the effect that a pandemic of H5N1 would have on the county. They had some very interesting models of H5N1 propagation and could run a large number of scenarios to simulate an outbreak.

In order to develop a training program, I looked at CDC’s existing disease reporting mechanisms and processes. I was appalled at what I found. In addition to mortality reports, the CDC receive admissions reports from most, but not all US hospitals. This reporting system suffers from the current use of telegraph and morse code to transmit information. It looks like it was designed in that era and has only reclutantly come up to the internet era.

These reports are not real time, and when received are suspect at best. Hospitals voluntarily self report and they make the call for reason for admission and disposition of patients. Infectious disease reporting was probably better in the 1920’s than it is today.

If the CDC is using statistical models (probably what they are doing, I’ve seen the models so I know they exist), that data is probably just as reliable as the accual data reported by hospitals and state/local health agencies. Bottom line is: I doubt that they have the slighest clue what the real number should be.