The Frenzy of the Pampered Middle Class

I got this gem via email this morning... it is, first of all, utter bullshit. The question attached to the message below was "Do you think this is true?"

Hi all,

I just had a long chat yesterday with Mike's cousin who is a doctor working closely with the epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists in BC to prepare the province's pandemic preparedness plan. She scared me! She told me that the flu is expected to hit by September and the LOW estimate of global deaths is 28 million this fall. Her biggest advice was to stockpile food and over the counter meds like tylenol and advil, have several months' worth of any prescriptions you need, stock up on alcohol-based hand sanitizers and also to boost your vitamin D by taking 5000 IU/day as studies are showing that flu-fatalities are less in those with good solid D levels. I am passing all this info to everyone I know...I figure we don't all have pandemic experts in our midsts and we certainly don't always know what to believe in the media.

No, I do NOT think it - or anything that is currently being foisted upon the amazingly gullible, stupid, media gulping, spoiled, never-uses-its-brain middle class regarding "swine" flu is true.

No, this could not be.

H1N1 is a mutation of influenza A, which circulates in some form every year. The interesting thing about H1N1 is the soon-to-be available ‘treatment.’ The company that is producing the ‘cure’ has actually been stockpiling it since 2006 and has made several references to ‘outbreak’ and ‘pandemic’ in their press releases – of 2006 and 2007.

The other interesting thing is what happened last time that company produced a ‘cure.’ In 1976, the last time there was an H1N1 outbreak, more people died from the ‘cure’ than from the drug – many more in fact.

Media and other coverage of this year’s pandemic is nothing more than a planned frenzy to provide the environment for what amounts to human testing on a mass scale of this company’s new cure, which may or may not work. It will NOT work as well as simply washing one’s hands. Period.

As with all airborne flues, the best, best treatments are these:

• WASH your hands often.
• When you cough/sneeze, do so into the crook of your elbow so that wet particles don’t land on your hands, which end up on surfaces and doorknobs, which will be touched by others.
• Never touch your hands to your mouth, nose and eyes unless you are sure your hands are clean: mucous and wet membranes are the most effective points of entry for any virus.
• WASH. This cannot be stressed enough. Wash your hands.
• Yes carry hand sanitizers but remember they dry the skin leaving it open to cracking and hence making it susceptible to infection via small wounds.

As to overdosing on vitamin D, I’d be really careful about that. Vitamin D is not easily managed by the body when it is ingested via pills. It is much more easily managed by simple exposure – 15 minutes to 30 minutes a day – of SUNLIGHT. Go outside.

Stockpile Advil??? Seriously? C’mon.

As to the figure of 28 million, seriously folks. 16,000 children die EVERY DAY from starvation and you don’t see the drug companies getting all ‘jiggy’ about that. 207 in the US die A DAY from smoking and about that number will die, also in the US, also A DAY from alcohol-related accidents – and four of those A DAY will die because of a drunk driver.

This "swine flu" thing is seriously stupid.

Here's one of the replies I got back from my email - and yes, I want your comments too so get on it!

"Amen,

I’m so tired of the “Panic of the Pampered” that we’re all guilty of falling into here in the West (me guilty too).

We’re so quick to fall prey to the media’s obsession with the “shiny” new FEAR INC. “product” (and I say Fear Inc. “product” because a good segment of our private/public capitalism machine runs exclusively on fear. The more the better. And they’ve found an endless supply of gullible customers in the pampered enclaves of western society. Yes, I know other cultures have their own weird-ass beliefs... and many less fortunate societies have much to be concerned about. But WE, HERE have no excuse to be so infantile and gutless in succumbing to the artificially packaged nonsense).

It’s so easy to chase our tails on the latest new “sky is falling” craze. Should we be prudent and practical? YES. Should we even be concerned sometimes...? SURE. But sweet Jebus... maybe we should take some responsibility for the REAL issues -- instead of dropping our pants for every hot news item. Like truly... THOUSANDS die of regular flu every year and you never hear no world wide frenzy. ‘Cause there ain’t much more money to be made off that one. So those battles can be fought by the yearly pharmaceutical ad campaigns. We don’t need to bring our good corporate partners CNN in on that one!

But, back to the real issues... There are a whole bunch of things that will definitely KILL us with more absolute certainty and regularity than an extra flu bug. Like excess in all its forms... bad diet esp... too much fat, sugar, salt, BOOZE, DRUGS, bad chemicals, smokin’, drinkin’, drivin’ fast.. too much stress. Or the flip side... lack of sleep, lack of exercise etc. Yeah, but we don’t hear too much about that because that would entail a huge prescription of PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. Which is not a good “product” to sell a pampered society on.

Okay... that’s my rant for the day. Back to work. And oops... better start taking my own advice... Uh... I’ll start tomorrow...

BA

p.s. I hear “FOOD INC.” is an amazing movie that may keep u from ever eating packaged goods again. Like forever. If we even remotely cared about what we actually put in our mouths - and where it actually came from - we really would have somethin’ to get all pandemicky about...