Biological Terror in Our Own Minds

Once again I have a newspaper column I wrote that I want to get some more play out of. So here it is (apologies for the strange spacing)

Last year it was the e. coli contamination in our spinach. The year before that it was the Asian bird flu. The year before that it was SARS. And before that it was the Africanized honey bee.
We’re always looking for it here in America, the next big epidemic, that latest and greatest danger that will finally be arriving to usher in armageddon and end us all.
Are we really so gullible as a people? Do we really just believe everything we see on TV?
In the 1997 movie “Men in Black” Tommy Lee Jones says to Will Smith, “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky, dangerous animals and you know it.”
I find that this quotation is uniquely suited to this situation, as I am more afraid of aliens invading the earth than I am of Asian bird flu.
Let’s look at the numbers. between 2003 and 2005 about 150 people worldwide died of the dreaded bird flu. Let’s compare this to some other random cause of death. How about car accidents, which account for 43,000 deaths in the US every year. That’s just over 117 deaths per day, about five deaths per hour.
But Ryan, you say, “you were talking about diseases, car crashes aren’t a disease.”
Well neither are bees, but I see your point. Let’s take our examples in a different direction.
What if bird flu had killed 7.2 million people worldwide in 2003? Then I might be a little bit concerned about it. Except bird flu didn’t kill 7.2 million people worldwide in 2003. No, that number is people who died of heart disease.
Who is worried about heart disease? I am now that I looked up the numbers, that’s for sure.
Next year I expect to hear about Guatemalan Kissing Sickness. Followed the following year by Kuala Lumpur Syndrome. These are just guesses of course, but now that they’ve been printed you should expect to see them showing up in other places. (I actually made those two up, so there’s no need to stop kissing).
But why oh why are these things being blown like they have been? What is the purpose of trying to scare honest, hardworking American taxpayers?
I have a theory. If the general populace were to actually feel threatened by Avian flu or any of the other outbreaks mentioned, there could be massive repercussions.
What if 80 percent of the population would no longer gather in public places for fear of infection? Public and commercial transportation including planes, trains, and buses would be hard hit. So would all professional sports. Churches could go either way, it depends on whether people want the comfort of divine presence or the safety of staying home more.
Surveys have been done which suggest that in light of an actual breakout most parents would keep their children home from school.
And what would everyone do while they were sitting in their homes shivering with fear and wolfing down anti-viral medications? They wold watch television, the very thing that informed them of the outbreak in the first place. Fear of disease and a “need” to know any news of the spreading biological menace would keep them glued to the tube, allowing advertisers to hold sway over a captive audience.
Maybe this all sounds a little over the top, but I told you before that it’s just my own theory.
Staying informed of the possibilities of new diseases is probably a good thing for you and your family, obsessing over them and worrying yourself sick over a foreign disease that might spread to the U.S. is pointless.