A Nation Of Hypochondriacs Loses All Perspective

I'm fascinated, just fascinated, with our latest big news. We live in such an incredible world, with such amazing possibilities. We can walk on the moon; we can breathe, live and work thousands of leagues under the oceans; we can genetically engineer the potential of our plants and (eventually) ourselves; we can even split the atom. Yet we can be overcome with fear and neuroses from every direction, from every source, with little or no advanced notice.

Some birds in Indonesia caught the flu? My GOD, whatever will we do? Genetically engineered tomatoes went to market in London? No! Disease resistant rice is for sale in Ethiopia? How can this be? Our government has banned trans fats? Oh, thank God.

If our neuroses are a sign of anything at all, I think they are a sign of how successful and comfortable we are as a nation – maybe as a species. Anything that upsets our o-so-delicately-balanced lives is seen not as what it should be, which is a temporary nuisance. But rather as a major intrusion – a malfunction of the highest, most disturbing order.

The current case in point is the swine flu that's made its way to America. As of this writing, it's killed no one in the United States (there are only 20 known infections), but roughly 70 people in Mexico have perished – which is where the problem seems to have originated. Again, as of this writing, I'm watching a soccer match, between I don't know who, with not a single person in the Mexico City stadium, because the authorities are so preoccupied with swine flu. Tens of thousands of empty seats. The authorities just don't want to risk that many people in the stadium at the same time. Someone might have the flu.

To my surprise, or maybe not, the World Health Organization already has web pages dedicated to the “outbreak.” And headlines like the AP's “World govts race to contain swine flu outbreak,” scream impending disaster.

I'm fascinated, just fascinated.

By comparison, about 52 people per year are killed in Mexico from falling coconuts – about one per week. The total known bird flu fatalities in the world were last reported at 222. This was widely reported as a “pandemic.”

According to a MedicineNet.com definition, a pandemic is:

Pandemic: An epidemic (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world.

So I have to ask a thoughtful, and (what I think is a) most insightful, question. Using the information in the above definition, does eighty deaths in Mexico sound to you like a “pandemic”?

Before you answer, let me point out that more than one hundred people per day die in car accidents in the United States. That's per day. Not per pandemic, or per month, or per year. That's per day.

Thirty-six thousand influenza deaths of a non-swine-type occur every year in the United States. That's a little over 98 influenza deaths per day – in just the United States.

Nearly half a million people die every year from smoking-related illnesses – in just the United States.

According to Answers.com, 300 to 500 million people are infected with malaria every year; and of those, over two million per year die from the disease.

So let's go back to the beginning. Does eighty deaths sound bad? Is it really a “pandemic”? Or has this become yet another simple media – “if it bleeds, it leads” – blitz? If anyone is to cry like Chicken Little, I think it's the general media. And if anyone is going to be blamed, of course, the immigrants are the easiest and most obvious targets who will most likely bear the brunt of American ire.

So I watched in amazement as the “bird flu” (not people flu), made headlines last year. And I'm amazed once again as the “swine flu” makes its way around the world as “World govts race to contain swine flu outbreak.” Eighty people die, and “world governments” respond. If we really want to help the population of planet earth, should we not get “world governments” to respond, and ban automobiles first?

How comfortable we have become.