 |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
May 18th, 2010
05:47 PM ET
How accurate is Google Flu Trends?
By Elizabeth Landau An Internet tool called Google Flu Trends launched in November 2008 with a lot of enthusiasm (although it was not called "Flugle" as I'd hoped). It promised to predict flu outbreaks based on the abundance of people searching for flu-related items on Google search engine. But a new study questions its accuracy. Researchers at the University of Washington put Google Flu Trends to the ultimate test: comparing its estimates against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's national surveillance programs. Google Flu Trends results have been shown to be mostly accurate in estimating influenza-like illness, but it had not been evaluated against laboratory tests for confirmed influenza virus, Dr. Justin Ortiz of the University of Washington, who led the study, said in a statement. He presented the findings at the American Thoracic Society meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana. The Web tool is 25 percent less accurate than the CDC at estimating rates of influenza virus infection confirmed with laboratory testing, the research said. For flu-like illness it is robust, however; previous research showed a 92 percent correlation between Google and CDC for the 2008-2009 season, said Jamie Yood, spokesman for Google Flu Trends. For Google, these findings are not surprising, Yood said. The system was modeled after flu-like illness data, not laboratory-confirmed cases. That makes sense because flu-like illness isn't always caused by influenza - in fact, only 20 to 70 percent of flu-like illness cases during the flu season are actually influenza, Ortiz said. But the average Google users aren't likely to have a lab test before punching words like "aches" and "fever" into Google, perhaps to see what the diagnosis would be. "For them, in a way, it doesn’t matter if it actually technically is influenza or not, it’s more or less the same ailment," Yood said. Media attention to the flu may skew the results for Google Flu Trends, as evidenced by the deviation in Google vs. CDC data in the 2003-4 season, Ortiz said. That influenza season had early and intense flu activity, and substantial media coverage. But Google Flu Trends does deliver information about flu activity in a fast and cheap way, and provides a good public health service, Ortiz noted. For individuals, knowing about flu activity may help remind people to get flu shots and take other simple precautions, Yood said. Google Flu Trends is always trying to improve the model, but not because of this study, Yood said. The search engine gurus are working on expanding geographic areas for flu predictions and on improving granularity. Editor's Note: Medical news is a popular but sensitive subject rooted in science. We receive many comments on this blog each day; not all are posted. Our hope is that much will be learned from the sharing of useful information and personal experiences based on the medical and health topics of the blog. We encourage you to focus your comments on those medical and health topics and we appreciate your input. Thank you for your participation.
Next entry »Is drinking healthy, or do healthy people drink?
« Previous entryBPA present in most canned food, groups allege
|
  About this blog
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love. Recent Comments
 |
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
© 2010 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
| Advertise with us | About us | Contact us | Help | Advertising Practices
Professor Fineberg is definitely doing his job right by asking for the complete interaction correspondence between WHO and global pharma. But there is no doubt that the WHO's influenza advisers were wearing two hats as many were having their research funded by the Big pharmaceuticals. Therefore these so-called independent advisers to the WHO were culpable in a great deal of fraud on the taxpaying people of the world and have to be fully exposed. If not, they will continue to hold these dual roles and the taxpayer will in perpetuity be fleeced to the tune of tens of billions of dollars every time the WHO's influenza advisers tell the WHO that we have a pandemic on our hands. Great way to make mega-billions.
But this drugs strategy is in essence a fool's strategy as the vaccines will always come too late to do anything to save eventually hundreds of millions of lives throughout the world. In this respect if people do their homework and take the USA's case of swine flu vaccination last year, it took 13 months from initial detection to immunise less than 25% of the US population. In 1918/19, up to a 100 million perished between week 14 and week 26. Based upon this most of us will be dead by the time we receive an antidote. The only way forward therefore to stop pandemics is to address it at source and never let it happen in the first place – http://avian-influenza.cirad.fr/content/download/1931/11789/file/Kennedy-F-Shortridge.pdf
Indeed, this strategy was stifled at birth by big pharma through Nature magazine doing their dirty work in January 2008. Therefore big pharma's reach goes everywhere and even prestigious magazines cover for them and definitely look after their corporate interests. No company, UN influenza adviser or prestigious magazine cannot be bought by big pharma.
But the real culprits are those who take the pieces as silver like Judas did and have to be brought to justice.
Nature magazine involvement in all this – http://www.nature.com/news/2008/080123/full/451382a.html
Betty Senior