Why There's No Reason to Go Overboard with Swine Flu Hysteria

H1N1 Just Isn't That Scary: Why There's No Reason to Go Overboard with Swine Flu Hysteria
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted September 25, 2009.

With the media pumping out story after fevered story of a unique and "deadly" new strain of influenza sweeping the globe -- tossing words like "pandemic" around with little in the way of context -- you'd have to be a Vulcan not to experience just a touch of panic. But is this flu really so scary?

Any virus that's new to the human population poses a potential danger. But perhaps the most striking aspect of the swine flu quasi-panic is, if it had emerged just a few short years ago, we would have gone about our lives without any sense that anything unusual was even under way.

After all, millions of people around the world get the flu each year, and tens of thousands die as a result -- most of them very old or very young or people whose immune systems are already compromised.

The vast majority of people who catch a case of flu feel like crap for a few days or a week, and then they recover. So far, the swine flu is no different -- it's not particularly virulent, nor is it deadlier than the strains commonly referred to as "seasonal flu" (although Mexican authorities initially thought it was for reasons that are not entirely clear).

Viruses mutate, intermingle with other strains and adapt, and the H1N1 flu is a new one -- a "zoonotic" virus that has leaped from pigs to humans. So it’s always possible that the swine flu could become a genuinely dangerous phenomenon.

But so far there’s no evidence to indicate that that’s a likely scenario. In fact, researchers at the University of Maryland conducted a study that concluded the swine flu is less likely to recombine with other strains; the Los Angeles Times reported that the results should ease "fears that the pandemic H1N1 influenza virus will … mutate into a more lethal form." (...)

http://www.alternet.org/media/142877/h1n1_just_isn't_that_scary%3A_why_there's_no_reason_to_go_overboard_with_swine_flu_hysteria/?page=entire

almost impervious to any medical treatment and otherwise healthy people die from the virus. One day you have a cold, and within a week, you're dead. That's unnerving.

Exactly like the OP, feel like crap for a week then recover. Much like just getting the flu. We need to be vigilant and take precautions, I don't want to go spend the afternoon with anyone with a confirmed case or anything, but hysteria gets old and doesn't achieve anything. Caution is better.

And if the swine flu -- H1N1 -- had hit just 10 short years ago, we would not have gone about our lives as if nothing was amiss. It's only due to stepped up efforts to screen for viruses after the SARS and "avian flu" scares, and our relatively new ability to quickly (and inexpensively) determine a virus’s genome, that we know something other than the so-called "seasonal flu" exists at all.

None of this has prevented the media from engaging in a full-blown Y2K-style panic. Every time a new case of flu is identified as being caused by the H1N1 strain, every time an unfortunate person dies of it, every time a public health official releases a new statistic about its spread or a school is shut down, a media feeding frenzy has followed.


** I would rather see advancements in science used to REDUCE irrational fear. In this case it has been used to increase irrational fear. Ironic, yes?

I agree completely. I do actually know a woman who died of it, but she was already battling (most likely) terminal cancer and was greatly weakened. In the end here official cause of death was H1N1, which dismisses the nearly year-long cancer battle that she was loosing before contracting the flu.

I have believed for a very long time that most of the fear we deal with every day results from media sensationalization. If they were doing there jobs the world would be a different place.

The worst part is that if an actual pandemic were to occur, I don't think the press getting hysterical would really help. I don't see them calmly informing the public and then putting their cameras down to help.

keeping the immune system healthy is key!

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It wasn't as bad as some bouts of the normal flu that I've had, but it still kicked my butt for about a week. I was miserable, but far from death.

have you evolved? :hi: