04-29-2009, 02:21 PM
quote:
Originally posted by Dave Smith
There is one point of perspective we should all keep in these discussions of the swine flu. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention notes that roughly 36,000 people die each year in the U.S. from complications from regular seasonal influenza, and that includes 13,000 so far this year.
Bet if the word "Swine" was never used and only H1N1, and it started in Kansas and not Mexico, we wouldn't have heard a peep about it from anyone and nobody would have batted and eye.
Funny how a single word and a location outside the US suddenly makes this flu a cause for panic. The CDC should never have called this season’s influenza H3N2 originating in the midwest. They should have called it the Bin Laden Flu and say it originated in Afghanistan. Maybe people would react as fast and furious as they are now after the first 100 illnesses and 1 death. It's so hard to imagine the silliness and foolish response to “Swine” flu from “Mexico” when we already are in the middle of another flu that, as you mentioned, sickened over 250,000 and caused over 13,000 deaths in the US this year alone. Where’s the hype and panic over that flu? Oh I forgot, that's an American flu, from America, killing only Americans. We only panic over flus with scary names not alphanumeric designations and only if it started in another country. So long as we are killing ourselves, it's fine with us and shouldn't be a concern regardless of how many people die. Are we stupid or what?