Now that the torture memos are well beyond the memory span of the American population, swine flu has become, “an illness that looks very much like seasonal flu.” That quote comes from Richard Besser, acting director of the CDC. I was glad to find that quote because it seems to justify my musing earlier today.
If an average of 36,000 people died of the flu during last year’s flu season, how many of them died from avian or swine flu without knowing it?
We only know about the 250+ cases of swine flu in America because everyone is hyper-vigilant about tracking flu symptoms right now. When we were in the middle of flu season just a few months ago, how many local doctors were sending in every suspected flu case to the CDC? Not too many.
Could it be that the swine flu and avian flu circulates yearly through America as part of the flu season with nothing more than a bunch of kids out of school?
Which makes me wonder how well former Gilead chairman Donald Rumsfeld made out on this scare when I see a headline like this, “Amid swine flu, sales of antiviral drugs surging” (emphasis mine):
“Americans frightened by swine flu are snapping up two antiviral medicines that treat the disease, whether they have it or not.
…[M]ore than a quarter-million prescriptions for Tamiflu pills alone were filled… in the week ending last Friday. That’s 34 times higher than the week before and more than double the peak of last winter’s flu season.
…[D]ata also shows prescriptions for Relenza jumped to nearly 14,000, 10 times higher than the prior week.
-mike
May 7, 2009 at 10:53 am
I am less worried about Swine Flu and more worried about 12 year olds stealing cars, buying plane tickets with stolen credit cards, and flying cross country with no id.
How come this didn’t make more news, maybe it shows our vulnerability, and plane ticket sales are already down.
http://a.abcnews.com/GMA/story?id=7464959&page=1
May 7, 2009 at 5:50 pm
The only thing I worry in regards to the swine flu is all of the predictions about the swine flu coming back in the winter.
I’m not saying there is some conspiracy to infect the population of America or the world, but now with the fear and worry sowed, who can say for sure what could be done under the guise of a virus?
In my travels abroad, I was asked several times why I took my laptop out of my carryon. In America we don’t think twice about the increased invasive ’security’ of our airports. I’ve talked about our herd mentality before in a previous post:
http://subversivechurch.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/news-commentary-tsa-full-body-scanners/
What have we given up in liberty for such a flimsy and false sense of security? As your story shows, anyone can get on a plane apparently. Imagine if the person had an elaborate system of deception to board a plane?
However, we do not need more security, we need to examine why we are targeted in the first place.
The actions of what John Perkins calls the corporatocracy (governments, corporations, financial institutions) result in profit for them, devastation for those exploited, and fear of retribution for the rest of us.
I’m not saying this problem will go away overnight with changing our actions, the damage has been done. I think Thomas Hegghammer makes this point quite well on Foreign Policy’s website:
http://experts.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/05/04/irreparable_damage
We are merely dealing with the consequences of being a part of the empire and the maintenance thereof.
-mike