The BIRD FLU....Media Hype or Real Threat?
Let the panic begin. Today, a patient called me and was concerned about cooking a turkey for Thanksgiving this year. Why? Bird Flu. Each day, I have phone calls request prescriptions for Tamiflu -- the only known medication that may help treat or prevent this emerging killer. Last night, we gave out about sixty flu shots to a cadre of terrified kids, and we will do this every day until we run out of vaccine. This vaccine is for our annual visitor - the plain 'ol garden-variety flu. This vaccine is not for the bird flu -- that is a flu of a different feather altogether.
It has been said that people who forget history are destined to repeat it. The average person who walks down the street has absolutely no knowledge of a recent global pandemic that nearly wiped us off of the face of the Earth. We are all very lucky to be here.
FLU FACTS:
In an average year, about 90-100 MILLION people in the U.S. get influenza, or 35% of the population. This results in about 20,000 deaths -- mostly in the elderly. If you factor in the 69,300,000 lost days of work and medical costs, the flu will cost the U.S. taxpayers about $10 BILLION. And, this is an AVERAGE year. It was a bit different in 1918...
FLU PANDEMIC: WORSE THAN ANY HOLLYWOOD DISASTER MOVIE
Just 87 years ago, in 1918, the world was a bit distracted with a terrible World War. Depending on your age, this may have been your parents or grandparents time. In the morning of March 11, 1918, Private Albert Mitchell went to the infirmary at Camp Funston, Kansas with some all-to-familiar symptoms: muscle aches, low-grade fever, mild sore throat, and headaches. No big deal. By noon, Albert was joined by 107 more of his comrades-in-arms. A day and a half later, every bed, floor space, and hall was filled with 522 young, formerly-healthy soldiers fighting for their lives on an unanticipated battlefield. The 1918 Flu Pandemic had begun....
In less than THREE WEEKS, the flu had spread to every state in the U.S. And remember, this was a time without commercial air travel. In Philadelphia alone, 13,000 people died in a matter of weeks, and already, 60% of the Alaskian Eskimo poplulation had been wiped out.
Because of troop movements and some considerable public health ignorance, the flu reached Europe by early April. A week later, it was in Asia, including the heavily populated areas of China. By July, it was killing people in Africa and South America. October, 1918 alone, a mere seven MONTHS after this modern nightmare began, 195,000 Americans died -- the deadliest month in US History. By January, the flu was in every inhabited place on earth. The final count when the flu finally retreated? 39, 300, 000 dead worldwide.
AVIAN FLU IS A REAL THREAT - SCARED YET?
You should be. The Bird Flu has the potential to make this 1918 Flu Pandemic look puny by comparison. It is NOT just media hype, folks...this is a real, honest-to-God, crap-in-your-shorts, threat. Is it going to happen? I wish that I knew. All that I can say is that it happened before.....we knew it would happen again.....and we hope this isn't it.
Related Topics: Bird Flu Facts, Avian Flu, Flu Season
It has been said that people who forget history are destined to repeat it. The average person who walks down the street has absolutely no knowledge of a recent global pandemic that nearly wiped us off of the face of the Earth. We are all very lucky to be here.
FLU FACTS:
In an average year, about 90-100 MILLION people in the U.S. get influenza, or 35% of the population. This results in about 20,000 deaths -- mostly in the elderly. If you factor in the 69,300,000 lost days of work and medical costs, the flu will cost the U.S. taxpayers about $10 BILLION. And, this is an AVERAGE year. It was a bit different in 1918...
FLU PANDEMIC: WORSE THAN ANY HOLLYWOOD DISASTER MOVIE
Just 87 years ago, in 1918, the world was a bit distracted with a terrible World War. Depending on your age, this may have been your parents or grandparents time. In the morning of March 11, 1918, Private Albert Mitchell went to the infirmary at Camp Funston, Kansas with some all-to-familiar symptoms: muscle aches, low-grade fever, mild sore throat, and headaches. No big deal. By noon, Albert was joined by 107 more of his comrades-in-arms. A day and a half later, every bed, floor space, and hall was filled with 522 young, formerly-healthy soldiers fighting for their lives on an unanticipated battlefield. The 1918 Flu Pandemic had begun....
In less than THREE WEEKS, the flu had spread to every state in the U.S. And remember, this was a time without commercial air travel. In Philadelphia alone, 13,000 people died in a matter of weeks, and already, 60% of the Alaskian Eskimo poplulation had been wiped out.
Because of troop movements and some considerable public health ignorance, the flu reached Europe by early April. A week later, it was in Asia, including the heavily populated areas of China. By July, it was killing people in Africa and South America. October, 1918 alone, a mere seven MONTHS after this modern nightmare began, 195,000 Americans died -- the deadliest month in US History. By January, the flu was in every inhabited place on earth. The final count when the flu finally retreated? 39, 300, 000 dead worldwide.
AVIAN FLU IS A REAL THREAT - SCARED YET?
You should be. The Bird Flu has the potential to make this 1918 Flu Pandemic look puny by comparison. It is NOT just media hype, folks...this is a real, honest-to-God, crap-in-your-shorts, threat. Is it going to happen? I wish that I knew. All that I can say is that it happened before.....we knew it would happen again.....and we hope this isn't it.
Related Topics: Bird Flu Facts, Avian Flu, Flu Season
2 Comments:
People have been dying since the beginning of time. We can't choose how we pass away but we can choose not to live in fear. With the way the media picks and chooses what it will air they decide how the majority will react and live. Let them show babies being born and people getting married, childrens birthday parties instead of all of the termoil that seems to sell and there will be a lot less fear. Before network television people died of illness, and acts of nature but we all didn't sit around and wonder when it would happen to us because we didn't know about it. Let's all just change that channel and watch some "Blues Clues" and the world may just be a happier place.
This is real. I believe that people are dying right now of illnesses that physicians are not familiar with. Sr. Citizens are dying at rapid rates and I think that the government is keeping a lid on it as to not start a panic. People are coughing and sneezing more at work now than ever before. I know that you could just chalk it up to just being a cold, but the thing is it is not a cold. You can't seem to get rid of it completely. You are still left with a nasty cough, nasal congestion and draining sinuses. Everyone has had a cold, but these are flu like symptoms that never seem to go away. I think there is a virus, bird flu, or something that is baffling the medical community and they are trying to keep it under wraps and just continue to subscribe antibiotics. The ironic thing about it is the antibiotics may be contributing to our inability to fight off these new virus strains.
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