http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/local_story_345092907.html
I have been following the news concerning the Swine Flu, this is the newest information that I have found. The Joplin Globe has reported another death related to the Swine Flu in Oklahoma City, Bringing the total within the state to 36. I did a little more research on this and have found that the CDC has indicated that this flu has primarily been affecting the young, under the age of 65, and totals 47 million nation wide. That is 1 in 6. The CDC has also stated that between the months of April and November, 98,020 have died from the Swine Flu. The numbers that are in this blog, from the CDC are not out of this article, they are off the National News.
This is upsetting to me. For the simple reason that the government is still trying to play down the affects of this flu, they are trying to make people believe that it is not as serious as it really is. Why tell people not to worry. When you tell people to not worry, they blow off the vaccination, they do not do what is needed to protect themselves and their families.
The reason that I feel this way, is because, the government is lying. Not just flat out, but in partials. They know just how serious this flu is, they know that we have not hit the big flu peak and they know that these numbers will get worse before they get better. Why not just be honest and tell the people that this is serious. That they need to be prepared. That this flu is going to get worse, and more people are going to die.
In the past several years we have had many scares with infectious diseases. Legionnaire's in 1976,anthrax in 2001 (as a bioterrorism agent), SARS in 2003, H5N1 in 2004. However, we do not seem concerned with these bacterial and viral infections anymore (although H5N1 has occurred in 37 countries and has killed 262 people as of 2009). This is not a matter of lack of information or fabrication of information from the government, it is that an old problem for the news is not as exciting or as horrifying as an old one.
ReplyDeleteEarlier I gave an example of SARS and H5N1. I would like to note that the former has been contained and that H5N1 is in remission. The physician in charge of those operation in China is the current director-general of the WHO. The current director-general of the CDC has reduced multidrug-resistant cases of tuberculosis by 80% in New York and has worked in India treating more than 10 million patients with tuberculosis. I think that we are in pretty good hands.
The H1N1 is a big deal, no doubts about it. But I seriously don't believe that it is as big of a deal as you are making it out to be. The flu virus did get a substantial amount of media attention when the severity of it was realized, enough that it was causing unnecessary panic. We all saw the pictures of people walking around the subway with their little face masks on and significant raise in doctors office visits with people who had nothing more than a simple cold but demand to be treated for swine flu. The government is trying to prevent that sort of thing from because we now have a vaccine and the situation is slowing becoming under control. That terrible pandemic that was supposed to have taken over the world never did. In fact, the WHO exaggerated the severity of the virus, possibly to benefit the pharmaceutical companies, its all a big scandal of he said she said. All in all though it has been a much milder flu season than many predicted.
ReplyDeleteIf that is not convincing note that the CDC has pointed out a decline the past few weeks in the number of cases and advices that there are an ample number of vaccines available and they do recommend that everyone gets vaccinated.
No one is saying that the flu isn't serious, and no one is saying that people shouldn't be cautious. But where it is swine flue or just the regular flu the government is saying don't panic we have developed a vaccine and treatment and we are in the process of trying to get things under control.