Yes, really, climate change is a risk, go look at the IPCC report which gives a range of possible outcomes some of which are worse than others.

People around here seem perfectly happy to advocate spending a few trillion on one of those risks (I don’t argue that we should do nothing, just over what it is exactly that we should be doing) and yet unhappy that anything at all is spent on the flu risk.

Just odd really.

Let’s just hope, eh, Claude? Yes, because ‘just hoping’ is precisely what any government should do when contemplating the small but real possibility of a major public health problem.

I’ve got a better idea: why doesn’t the Government employ specialist doctors to evaluate potential epidemics and follow their advice on such matters as stockpiling medicines? Oh wait, they already do. Don’t tell Claude, or he’ll write another of his calm and considered comments with LOTS of WORDS in CAPITALS and plenty of EXCLAMATION marks!!!!

Better not let Bendy Girl hear you say that…………

Clearly the Mexican situation is not here in Britain now, but (unlike with avian flu or SARS or many other health scares) there is an entirely logical reason for believing we will be in the same situation given a period of time: the influenza virus is highly contagious and spreads internationally. It does this all the time with less deadly strains.

Of course this epidemic is highly convenient for the media and pharmaceutical companies, but that isn’t evidence they are making it up in some sinister conspiracy to fool the population into “suckling from their teat”.

I’m worried about a plague because I don’t want the survivors to be lead by Max Beasley.

There’s a woman in my office due to go on holiday to Mexico in a few weeks and she was worried about pig flu till I pointed out she’s more likely to get stabbed, shot or kidnapped there.

That put her mind to rest.

Genius.

But seriously, this article mirrors something I wrote myself and to be honest I am feeling a little silly now.

What Swine Flu is, is a risk. Not a particularly large risk, but a risk all the same. The media are notorious scaremongers but the way Swine Flu is being reported is not exceptionally bad to be honest.

The public should be informed of these things but I don’t think the scientific illiteracy of the media is much worse than that of the general public. This is a risk and we should be wary of it, that’s the basic news story, I don’t place much blame at the media’s door on this occasion for trying to inflate it.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/who-will-be-the-first-arsehole-to-wear–a-facemask?-200904291731/

Still touch and go for Jack Bauer though.

That put her mind to rest.

Not particularly. The fact that it is avian flu does not mean that it is restricted to birds, just that it is more adapted to that host at present. Spanish flu for example was well adapted to both birds and humans.

The point is that scientists, proper experts in stuff, have a far greater understanding of this issue than the writer of this blog (and much of the media). Why not visit the excellent CDC site and try and understand the science before criticising it.

It’s also worth pointing out that scientists are dumping their research on this outbreak in the public domain as fast as they can. Why would they do that if it was a big pharma conspiracy?

We sometimes hear rebukes from patients with a terminal disease who live twice as long predicted – the incredible thing is that some people REALLY BELIEVE a doctor can tell them how long they’ve got (3 months, 6 months, a year, etc) – a doctor can take an educated guess based on the characteristics of a given population, of course, but none of them, no matter how clever, are clairvoyant.

So how do we report on an infectious disease that just might kill a large number of people but more likely won’t?
Is it best to adopt the ostrich ploy and run the risk of the ‘I-told-you-so brigade’ putting the boot in IF it all goes horribly wrong?
Or do we try to anticipate the worse and share all of the gory details with the general public anticipating the inevitable hysteria such stories generate?

I seem to recall a similar hysterical note in the reporting of a deadly virus that gained a certain notoriety in the gay bath houses of Frisco – a virus that has now accounted for many millions of lives globally.

The battle against microbes, especially rapidly evolving organisms like viruses will be lost at some at some point , especially if it is a bug that is transmitted in the air – maybe not today, but such an outbreak does seem likely at some point.

You know the wrong Mexicans. Ay! Caramba!

Speaking as a scientist, Martin, could that be because it is bird flu?

I clearly have no vested interest in bigging up stories about the threat to humans from infectious diseases.

Yeah, right.

My favourite scare story was CJD because it turned out that David Mellor was right to stuff a burger down his face for the cameras after all!!!!

But the problem is that when the public swallow this sort of stuff so easily, it explains why the Government doesn’t have to work too hard to use the fear of terrorism to lock down all our lives.

When it’s really lightning we should be worried about.

Yes, the biggest example of this trend is ‘Catastrophic Global Warming’, of course. We will never learn.