| Swine Flu Is a Big Hunk of Bullshit |
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The “Hey, what’s that over there?” tactic has occurred once again, and it likely went under everyone’s radar, but yes, SWINE FLU was it. Now, that wouldn’t be extremely patronizing on its own, but Americans have quickly forgotten that the last time the news warned everyone that they were going to die, it was eerily similar: BIRD FLU. I remember a time—recently, in fact—where everyone was scared to death of dead birds in the park. Mothers and fathers would tell their kids to refrain from their God-given right to poke dead things with sticks. Parents everywhere wouldn’t even budge at the length of the stick used to nudge said bird. It was now officially out of the question. H5N1 is the official “cool-sounding” name of the bird flu virus. Since 2004, worldwide H5N1 has killed 248 people. Two-hundred and forty-eight. Between 1997 and 2006, 437 people were killed in the U.S.by being struck by lightning. This is disheartening news, considering regular old 7-Up-and-chicken-soup-flu kills almost a thousand times more people every year in the U.S. (~20,000) than H5N1 has killed worldwide in 4.5 years. Swine Flu (cool-sounding name, H1N1) originated in Mexico, where roughly 4,100 cases have been reported as of press time. Of those 4,100 cases, 91 have died. The U.S. has reported about 8,000 cases of the bug. 11 have died. After these countries, four deaths have been reported worldwide as a result of this vicious, ravenous virus. The world is no stranger to influenza pandemics and, considering our propensity for data storage and collection, there’s no foreseeable slowdown to having bullshit stories shoved in our faces. How many of you have heard of the Russian flu, Spanish flu, Asian flu or Hong Kong flu? I’m guessing not too many. Well, combined they killed about 50 million people (mode average of World Health Organization reports) since 1889, when the first case of the Russian flu was reported. The last major pandemic we had ended in 1969. Spanish flu, first reported in 1918, killed what the WHO speculates could be up to 100 million people in two years. The ironic part? The strain of influenza involved with the Spanish Flu was H1N1! Wait, you mean to say that the virus responsible for killing up to 100 million people in two years is the same strain that has killed 106 in one month (1,272 in one year, 2,544 in two)? Yes, that’s right! To put things in perspective, the first refrigerator for home use was sold seven years prior in 1911. People in the USA had just moved beyond eating canned meat exclusively. The first Ford motorcar was cranked off the assembly line in 1914. That is to say, medical technology has evolved well beyond using leeches to draw blood. And even then, Spanish flu didn’t kill everyone. Now, H1N1 is wreaking havoc in even less places with even less fatalities, but somehow everyone is crapping their pants about it. Read a book! |