Posted on 04/30/2009 1:26:08 PM PDT by lewisglad
The people who do TV news -- the big-time, ostensibly serious, 24/7 stuff -- know what the audience likes.
One of the things they've found out about us is there's nothing we find more entertaining than a crisis. We love that hint of danger -- vicarious, of course, but not so far removed that we can't put ourselves in the shoes of the real people who are going through something kind of scary.
Governments love crises, too. Crises offer the chance to sound concerned look busy and tell us what good care they're taking of us. And made-up crises are the best of all, because it's almost impossible to screw them up.
I'm saying the piggy pox is the crisis du jour, and has been since Sunday.
That's the day the grunting and squealing started in the cable news channels' pen. Just as the virus jumped from pigs to people, the hysteria jumped from the media to a couple of governments, and since then it has been spreading like wildfire.
The World Health Organization estimates that every year, at least 99.99 percent of the world's population doesn't die of anything related to the flu. The last pandemic scare, the avian flu, killed a worldwide total of 421 people over seven years.
The media know we like a good stampede while we're waiting around for global warming that will never get here or a North Korean missile that might.
But by acting, right from the outset, as if every story is the Big One, the visual media are training Americans to get all worked up over nothing, while desensitizing us to real danger.
It isn't in the media's interest -- or politicians' -- to drop the self-serving dramatics.
It's up to you to build up your resistance
(Excerpt) Read more at cleveland.com ...
>>has no idea why everyone is freaking out.
TV. Ignorant, blowdried, braindead fluffernutters fluffing the audience for ratings, they care, can’t you see their earnest, alarmed faces full of concern?
Swine Plague
Mmmmm Pork Pesto.
I wonder if Zero ordered this virus to be released.
He wants to let terrorists run free.
Just sayin’.
I’m in GA and had my son at the Doc’s today, they said the same thing. As with all flu, if you are immune compromised it will hit you harder, but then again that is with just about any illness.
It IS the flu, NOT the plague.
However, please remember that the “Spanish” flu of 1918 probably killed more people than the plague (Black Death), estimates as high as 100 million.
The 1918 flu was H1N1 and was avian in origin. This one is said to be H1N1, avian and swine in origin.
Caution is wise. So is common sense.
The 1918 flu first appeared in the spring in a milder form, then abated over summer, and re-emerged in virulent form that fall. If you want to be truly frightened, go to your local library and read microfilmed local newspapers from fall 1918.
I did. I’m being very careful right now.
If we need to hole up and stay away from each other to stop contagion, let’s just accept the inconvenience and cooperate.
OK?
The two aren't mutually exclusive....
The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History
Not to be curt but there is a world of difference with the medical care of 1918 and 2009.
Ummmm.... the plague kills a tiny handful of people a year in the United States. The flu kills many tens of thousands. If they tried to make it sound better, they failed.
I know, sounds good till ya know what’s in it.
I remember reading an article here many months ago about scientists obtaining DNA/samples from graves on ppl that died from the 1918 flu. need to find that
Except, of course, by the human immune system, which is currently curing billions of people every day.
Get a grip.
But mass transpo is much different, too, than it was in 1918. And that's a biggie. Also, the eggheads don't have a bead on what this virus is gonna do yet. It's still pretty early on the outbreak. And we probably won't have a vaccine for at least a few months. Hopefully, though, this bug will be a bust :)
Oh come on folks, can’t you see the silver lining in this cloud?
Just think of all the jobs that Obama saved with the billion plus tax dollars that he through at this.
My family is taking reasonable precautions, just as we do to limit our exposure to other things that could make us sick.
Perhaps it would be fun and Obama could save more jobs if we hyped a flu and participated in worldwide tracking of the common cold and yearly flu next season.
We could then have a working model comparing how this piggy flu killed 7 people and the yearly variety kills 36,000.
It just occurred to me, Obama may have just found a way to cure flu for all time. When you add up all of the sick leave that will save... wow, right there saves some more jobs...
We are witnessing the true genius of our time... damn, just thinking about it made me faint.
hrough at this.= threw at this.
Here is the thread from AUGUST 2008. This needs to get out.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2066012/posts
Lot of comments about swine flu possiblities
Perhaps this needs to be re posted
Let’s hope.
We could certainly stop the plague now, because we have antibiotics. We now have a few anti-virals, too, but they don’t all work against flu.
There is, indeed, a world of difference between 1918 and today, the greatest probably being that of modern travel and the ability to spread contagion with great effectiveness.
Recall that 1918 was still largely horse-and-buggy time in most of the world, and that awful bug still managed to spread around the globe and kill whole families practically overnight, even in rural areas.
I hope we’re over-reacting and that this is just an odd spring flu that fades quickly.
Get a grip.
Thanks for making my point!
It is not CURABLE by drugs, whereas bacterial infections are curable with antibiotics (and the natural immune system) in humans.
The point of my post is that one cannot compare viral infections with bacterial infections.
You do, of course know the difference, or perhaps you should:
Get a grip
Scientists see this flu strain as relatively mild
Seasonal flu strains kill about 36,000 Americans a year.
I have read up quite a bit over the last three years about how a virulant pandmic flu operates and that otherwise good advice just isn't true for the pandemic type when it does hit.
Now, this flu is coming late and may resurface in the fall for a second cycle. So I am by no means saying "this is the big one, Elizabeth" like Fred Sanford.
But, the pandemic flues like the Spanish Flu that was avian/pig in its mutation cycle, hit the strong and healthy the hardest for the high mortality outcome.
As I understand it the healthy immune system responds to the strong virus with a strong flood of secretions and lungs virtually fill up. Full respirators are one of the tools for when this happens in other diseases, the problem is we are short by a factor of 200 to 1.
Look up a reaction called a "Cytokine Storm" read this article: http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/full/352/18/1839
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