[Current Events] another Flu Hoax?

[Miliciano]

I hate to sound like a cynical paranoid freak, but judging from the complete lack of morality in previous US foreign relations, I have a little conspiracy theory for you all. It probably is not true, but I just want to hear your inputs.

So the economic crisis was at a high point, see? It was on everyone's mind, people and news anchors just could not stop talking about is. It was like the rumor of a death knell for this nation. Then, out of the blue, a new, terrifying disease appears. This is a new fear, and fear is a particularly contagious disease. People are frightened, because they had been shaken by the bird flu affair several years before, and because this seemed like it be many times more dangerous. Soon, the initial hysteria that emerged from the first reports died down, and people, although worried, steeled themselves and began to come out of the fear haze. The last we had heard of the economy, things did not look great, but we were certain they were improving. We come back to our senses, and things aren't okay after all. People were so scared by the swine flu they completely forgot the precarious situation of the economy.

Fear is a weapon used against the mind. Make people afraid, tell them you can make things better, and they will believe you no matter how insane you are.

[Inyri Forge]

The only "conspiracy" here is a news media that gets higher profits if they scare more people. Scared people watch more news. True fact. (Not really, but it makes logical sense, so don't go asking me for a source. >.>)

[Junk angel]

The flu isnt a grim reaper unless you have underlying health problems or a crappy immune system.

The flu (normal seasonal flu) is actually a pretty nasty killer. It's not the black plague, but every year a pretty large amount of people die from it.

The thing is, a giant amount of people confuse flu like diseases with actual flu. There's hundreds of diseases which have a similar effect. But those are usually far milder.

As my doctor once put it - if you have the flu, you won't be seeing the doctor, the doctor will be seeing you. Because you honestly will not have the power to get yourself to him in any normal means.

[NiteStryker]

Originally Posted by Inyri Forge

The only "conspiracy" here is a news media that gets higher profits if they scare more people. Scared people watch more news. True fact. (Not really, but it makes logical sense, so don't go asking me for a source. >.>)

Exactly. Its all the media. Every time there is the tinest outbreak of E Coli or mad cow or west nile or SARS.....the shit is out there every day. But one media outlet picks it up and runs with it to sensationalize it.

Originally Posted by Junk angel

The thing is, a giant amount of people confuse flu like diseases with actual flu. There's hundreds of diseases which have a similar effect. But those are usually far milder.

If this is true, I probably have never had the flu. Ive had little sicknesses here and there. But not a real "flu".

[Miliciano]

Originally Posted by NiteStryker

Exactly. Its all the media. Every time there is the tinest outbreak of E Coli or mad cow or west nile or SARS.....the shit is out there every day. But one media outlet picks it up and runs with it to sensationalize it.

Like the point I made in a previous post, people cannot worry about serious everyday issues if they are scared to death. It's kind of like how religion tells you that you should submit to a god, spend your life dedicated to him and his laws, and endure your suffering because there is a happy little cloud waiting for you when you die. There is supposedly some brutal torturing in your future if you do not follow said rules, and so you are scared into doing what you are told. You cannot come to your senses because it makes you too frightened to even know the difference between fiction and reality. Religion is the worst video game ever invented. Just a bunch of crap to distract you from real life, making you think you can come back when you die, and when you finally realize the truth, your entire life has been wasted on a lie.

[Smitty025]

Originally Posted by Junk angel

The flu (normal seasonal flu) is actually a pretty nasty killer. It's not the black plague, but every year a pretty large amount of people die from it.

Every year a lot of people die from a lot of stuff, big deal. Death is the other half of life. For the most part I find all this paranoia completely retarded. According to an article from a WHO group,

Every winter, tens of millions of people get the flu. Most are home, sick and miserable, for about a week. Some—mostly the elderly—die. We know the worldwide death toll exceeds a few hundred thousand people a year, but even in developed countries the numbers are uncertain, because medical authorities don't usually verify who actually died of influenza and who died of a "flu-like illness."[1]

So if we assume the low end of the total people getting the flu, 10 million, and the high end of people dying from it, lets say 500,000, that means 5% of people who get the flu die from it. Not particularly scary to me, especially considering most of them are already sick or elderly. Futhermore, the article even says that estimates of people dying from the flu might be exaggerated because a distinction is not often made between Influenza and similar diseases.

It's not that it can't be deadly, it's just that the reaction to it has been ridiculous lately.

[1]http://www.paho.org/English/DD/PIN/Number22_article1a.htm

[NiteStryker]

Originally Posted by Smitty025

Death is the other half of life.

Death's gotta be easy, its life thats hard. It'll leave you physically, mentally and emotionally scarred.

[crisissuit3]

what happened to bird flu?

[Afterburner]

Originally Posted by crisissuit3

what happened to bird flu?

As far as I know it's still running pretty rampant in bird populations, and is still considered a possible source for a future Pandemic, as like swine flu it is unstable and could mutate fairly easily into something much worse then what it is.

Just because the media stopped paying attention doesn't mean researches think it doesn't pose a threat anymore.

[crisissuit3]

how many "future pandemics" can you have?

how long until we have zebra flu?