30,000 Americans die each year of the common flu.

"This year, more than 300,000 Americans will die from illnesses related to overweight and obesity."
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/news/testimony/obesity07162003.htm

Such illnesses include diabetes, stroke, etc etc...

I think scientists and governments, and general populations have their priorities wrong...

@ scubasdsteve87: You would be right if there weren't MILLIONS of dollars per year spent on trying to cure / prevent deaths due to obesity related illness. But there is FAR more money spent on trying to cure illness and disease related to obesity than there is spent on flu research.

Not to mention, if a flu pandemic hit that wiped out 10 million or more in a matter of months, we would be begging those flu researchers to save us.

It's foolish to think that if "only" 30,000 people a year die of something (just in ONE country) it's not worth studying. For one thing, it's 30,000 people! For another, research into curing or treating one type of infection or illness often illuminates the way to better treatments for other illnesses.

The H1N1 influenza killed between 50 and 100 million people, back when the Earth had a population of about 1.5 billion.

I'd say spending a little money on research into influenza is probably worthwhile, as a repeat of a H1N1-class flu that killed roughly 3-6% of the Earth's population would be in the "bad things" category. What was most devastating about H1N1 was that the age category with the greatest number of deaths was in the 20-40 age group -- it wasn't the influenza we know now that preys on the very young and very old.

Obesity is pretty simple. Stop eating so much and walk more. Billions of dollars in research saved.

According to the CDC only 753 people died of the flu in 2002, a near 200% increase from 2001 when only 257 died from it:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr52/nvsr52_13.pdf
(page 16)
Where this "30,000" figure comes from is still a mystery.