What's up with this bird flu shit?

[Colonel Kira's Left Tit]

I'm watching CNN for the first time in days (and please, shoot me now), and this story seems to be all over the place. Cook your chicken thoroughly! Wear a mask in public! Don't travel to Asia! I can see it now, this is going to be bigger than the duct tape and plastic frenzy of a few years ago or the Atkins Diet.

Article

Fearmongering at its best.

On another note, it's nice to see that Anderson Cooper's hurricane histrionics have earned him a primetime anchor seat. :roll:

 

[Number_6]

I hate CNN. I hate cable news. The only time I watch it is at the gym, when I have no choice. I can't believe they're still milking the hurricane story the way they are--it verges on the pornographic. They're so gleeful at being able to talk and talk and talk and talk about bad stuff.

I don't know much about this bird flu thing, but CNN and the other cable news stations have had the same effect on me as on you.

 

[SSgt_Sniper]

Oh wow, another SARS. Jesus Christ. The sad part is, a lot of the poor folk who will die from this sort of thing aren't the ones that should die. They are the ones that if they had a chance, would try to at least leave their little corner of this planet better. All the true fucknuts will survive. Thus the world degrades with each revolution around the sun......

 

[Buttons]

Following WWI there was a massive influenza outbreak which killed over a 100,000 people in this country ALONE. Corrected for population dynamics we're talking tens of millions in the current day (more interactions, and what not). The thing with all 'flus' is they come from birds. Even normal swine flu is transmitted first from chickens to pigs then to humans. And there are usually only 4 or so varieties.

Besides which, almost all flus start in China, where chickens and pigs and humans are kept in very tight quarters, thus moving disease back and forth, mutating them. When you get your normal flu shot each year, the CDC has taken the most virulent flu being reported in china and made that vaccine.

 

[Laker_Girl]

Why are we suddenly on the verge of a pandemic every year now? Remember the flu shot shortage pending pandemic of last year?

 

[Buttons]

Thats because the CDC ordered up the vaccine (ie they guessed wrong on the four main types).

 

[Laker_Girl]

^I know silly Kitty, I was just pointing out the sensationalism that never comes to fruition. It's going to be the boy who cried wolf because of the Goddamn media.

 

[Gagh]

Why are we suddenly on the verge of a pandemic every year now? Remember the flu shot shortage pending pandemic of last year?

Because we're living in a health scare society now. Much like old people drone on about how you never had it so easy, because they are aware of all the things that can wrong. Society has progressed, and with it it's knowlegde of diseases, and the sort.

As a result, everything is now a health scare. Almost every food substance is linked to cancer, almost every natural disaster is going to be the worst until the next. As far as Global Society goes, our attitude is currently stuck in the late 70's / early 80's equivalent of an old geezer / gal rockin' on a chair and droning on about the past.

 

[Number_6]

But Laker_Girl is correct about one thing--when there actually is a pandemic, we're not going to be prepared for it, and it's going to be the media's fault. Every year their dire predictions don't come true means that the next year's dire predictions are taken less seriously than the last.

It's sad, really. The other day, I was trying to direct my students to places where they could see examples of good, expository writing. There was a day when I felt safe directing them to the editorial pages of the major newspapers and columns in the big weekly newsmags, but no longer. It's all sensationalist and/or partisan crap.