CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?!

As global panic over the swine flu continues to spread, I think more and more about the swine flu of 1976. In that case, the flu killed one person in the US and the panic left 500 paralyzed. Up until now, I have been focusing on showing the facts, to help people realize this situation isn’t nearly as bad as everyone keeps saying it is. Today, I want to talk about it from a bit of a different perspective. I am not an expert, so I honestly don’t know how bad this flu is. But I know plenty of people that are suffering from the panic, even though they’ve never been within 500 miles of a confirmed case of the actual virus. My message today is that, whether or not the flu ends up being a major catastrophe, the response will be unless we can get ourselves under control.

My husband worked a 12 hour shift in the emergency room last night. As I mentioned before, we live across the border from Mexico, so the whole paranoia feels very close. It is not. There have been no confirmed cases here or across the border. The radius of non-contamination extends for hundreds of miles. Despite that, the ER was overrun. We’re talking about a day shift on a Wednesday. None of the doctors can remember the line of emergencies extending so far out the door. I asked my husband, “It was all flu-like symptoms?” He responded, “Yes…well, no. But we sure had a hard time weeding through the people to find the ones that had a real complaint.”

He told me that the doctors had called the lab a week ago to ask how many flu tests they could run. The lab said they could run as many as the doctors could order. Yesterday, the lab called the ED to say they were dangerously short on supplies. And all of this is in a place with no confirmed cases of this flu. Consider how many truly sick people will be unable to get help if the flu reaches us here.

Let’s take a look at a few facts…

Central Mexico has shut down. How long will the already weakened economy survive in such a state? Can the country take the loss of business? How many people will be denied needed medical services? How many people will go hungry? How many people will suffer much worse than flu symptoms without ever actually contracting the flu?

Several countries have banned pork from the United States and Mexico. In some places, people are randomly slaughtering pigs. In Egypt, where there have been NO confirmed cases, the government ordered the culling of 300,000 pigs. Farmers are rioting. How many people will loose their livelihood? How many will starve? How many people will suffer for a disease that is not food borne and has nothing to do with eating pork?

Just as concerning is the fact that governments are declaring states of emergency, giving themselves more power to trample on the rights of individuals to deal with this "crisis." Geez, if we have one more emergency, we might find ourselves living under a dictator.

This is all for a flu that some experts say is mild and less deadly than the regular flu season. Please, Please, Please….read this article.

Do not let panic lead to much worse consequences than the flu could hope to. Stay calm. Learn the facts. Find strength in knowledge.

Dogs and Cats Living together: Mass Hysteria

How many people have died from the swine flu? According to the World Health Organization, that number is 7. This means that reports of other deaths have not been independently confirmed and may, in fact, have been caused by something else. You can read more on that here.

Still, today, every newspaper in America is covering the huge news that there has finally been a death here. What many of them fail to note is that this little girl was brought from Mexico to the USA to seek treatment. I have a bit of a unique perspective on this. I live in a border city and my husband is an emergency medicine resident at the hospital where Mexicans are brought for treatment when they show up at the border requesting medical care. He has shared with me many stories of having to cure the underlying illness and also whatever the health care techs in Mexico did that made it worse. He has also shared many stories of people who were so bad by the time they were transported to the USA that there was nothing the doctors could do to help them. He thinks some docs send their patients here so they won't die under their care. We have no way of knowing how sick this baby girl was before she was taken to Houston. We have no idea of knowing what her previous health record was like. Certainly, if she had underlying health problems before she got sick, any virus could have caused serious complications leading to death. But the fact is that the are not releasing any information besides her age. Please note: I have the utmost sympathy for any parent who loses a child. I sincerely hope they have the opportunity to celebrate her life, rather than only remembering how she died.

I firmly believe that we should all try to be prepared for whatever we can be, but I want everyone to take a step back right now and consider the facts. It is definitely not time to panic. Do not let yourself become a victim of fear. Two days ago I shared the CDC's estimate that 36,000 Americans die every year from the flu. Yet, this one Mexican who died in America is making everyone crazy. My advice is just to stay educated. The random slaughtering of pigs, bans on American pork, considerations of travel bans, and run-of-the-mill panic are definitely over-kill.

UPDATE: The department of health has announced that the little girl who died in Houston had "underlying health issues." Wow. who'da thought?

The Tyranny of Fear and Flu

I have watched in slight amusement as the global paranoia continues to grow concerning the swine flu “epidemic.” Most of the people reading this are horrified by my attitude. Why, oh why, am I not concerned? Don’t I know that this flu has sickened 1000 people in Mexico alone? Don’t I know that it has caused eighty deaths? Am I not aware that the US Secretary of Defense has declared a state of emergency and begun testing at the borders? Have I heard that this flu is resistant to the flu shot? Have I considered the fact that this horrible disease is now popping up all over the country?

Yup, I know those things. And I have great sympathy for the people who have lost family members to the swine flu. So, why would I use the word “amusement” in relation to such a catastrophe? I know a few other things as well. I know that the CDC estimates that 36,000 people die from the flu every year in the United States. Yup, you read that right; read it again just for fun. How many people has the swine flu killed in this county? Zero. In fact, the vast majority of people who have been confirmed as infected have not needed to be hospitalized. They simply develop flu symptoms and then get better. I also know that the flu shot is just a guessing game. It's a very scientific guessing game, being played by some very intelligent guessers, but there is no guarantee that the flu shot will be effective against the dominant flu in any given year.

Why do you suppose everyone is so worried about this? Well, the government isn’t helping with all of the hype. I suppose sentences like, “This is a combination of swine, avian and human flu that has never been seen before,” are a little disconcerting. Yes, it’s new. Yes, there is a possibility that one year the flu is going to mutate into a very deadly strain that will sicken and kill untold numbers. It’s just not this year.

I will continue to teach my children good hygiene, but I won’t hide them in the house or be afraid to let them near other kids. I hope that everyone can learn very soon that life doesn’t get better when we convince ourselves to be afraid to live.