You had me right up until "The flu is truly a dangerous disease. In any given year the USA will lose between 10,000 and 50,000 people to the flu.".
It's a known fact, by inspecting the CDC's own data, that the number of deaths from flu each year is insignificant, and probably over-reported (because it's rare for a flu virus to actually be found). Please follow this link to see the real info on flu stats.