Have you heard the news? Our country is on the verge of a pandemic; a disease is running prevalent throughout the whole world. We are hearing talk of the closing of borders, business, and schools. Flights are being cancelled and we are locking people in quarantine. In other countries and here in the United States, the death count is rising. The media is hyping it as the next “plague” of sorts, and we have bought it hook, line and sinker.
Were you worried you would get swine flu? Perhaps your concern was for your family or friends getting the H1N1 virus? Maybe this influenza would show up at your place of employment? Have you taken the appropriate precautions to protect yourself? You should have went out already and purchased surgical masks and antibacterial soap, or if you were really lucky, you may have found the immunization shot for sale online. We think we are facing the catastrophe of our lifetime, a devastation of our population soon to come; and that is just what the media wants us to think. They did their job well, inciting panic, fear, and foreboding in most of the United States. They made the television ratings rise, newspapers sell, and the internet highway ring with people trying to get the latest information on this problem.
The swine flu, or H1N1 virus, is a strain of influenza. Influenza first devastated the United States around 1920, and was named the Spanish Flu. It quickly infected one third of the population in the world and killed over 30 million people worldwide (Boyer, 2001). The next big flu epidemic to hit was the Asian flu of 1957. The global death toll for this virus was around 2 million people (Pandemics, 2009). The Hong Kong flu of the late sixties killed over thirty thousand people in the United States, and over one million people throughout the world (2009.). It seems that the flu just won’t go away, with these influenza epidemics coming back about every twenty years.
With those statistics, it is no wonder we fear a major outbreak of H1N1 flu. We have made many medical advances since the last outbreak, as well as learned many valuable lessons on how to deal with the flu. We can mass produce the vaccines and get them to the most vulnerable people quickly. We would first vaccinate our elderly, our young, and our sick. We now have specific protocol in place for the manufacturing and distribution of the vaccines, because of the issues of past vaccine availability. In 1976 (Warner, 1999) after the immunization program started to prevent widespread influenza, it was said that faulty vaccines were given, resulting in the deaths of vaccine victims. It was later proven that the vaccines did not in fact kill the people, but the media attention did much harm to this immunization program. There were also predictions of the manufactures making millions of the wrong vaccine in which to spread the virus more (1999).
The media has exaggerated in the past, and are doing it today in regards to the deaths that are caused by the influenza virus. Yes, we could very well see another pandemic happen with influenza. Is nine deaths in the United States (as of May 21, 2009) considered to be a pandemic (Park, 2009)? I do not think so. The media today needs to help us get accurate information pertaining to this health risk. They do not need to propagate fear, distrust, and panic. The media outlets use of this information in the face of an influenza outbreak is careless and unproductive, but they are getting their ratings or selling their newspapers.
It is said that on the average year, in the United States, there are 36,000 people who die from flu-related symptoms (H1N1 Flu, 2009.) We will have deaths from virus outbreaks; it is not uncommon. The President has even tried his hand at calming our citizens by saying we should be concerned, and stay alert, but we should not be alarmed. With smart precautions we can get through this ordeal just like all the other epidemics before. We might be talked into buying the mask to cover half of our face, or get vaccinated soon, but that too is to be expected.
References
Boyer, P. (2001). Influenza. The Oxford Companion to United States History. Retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O119-Influenza.html
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.cdc.gov/swineflU/
Pandemics and Pandemic Threats Since 1900. (n.d.) U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.pandemicflu.gov/general/historicaloverview.html
Park, M. (2009). We Are Not Out of the Woods With New Flu, CDC Warns. CNN. Retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/05/18/swine.flu.update/index.html
pictures.(2009). Picsearch.retrieved May 21,2009 from http://picsearch.com/image-dir.html
Warner, J. (1999). The Sky is Falling: An Analysis of the Swine Flue Affair of 1976 retrieved May 21, 2009 from http://www.haverford.edu/biology/edwards/disease/viral_essays/warnervirus.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment