Swine Flu: Panic? Don’t Panic?

Here is a nice quote from a secretary of health, education, and welfare:

There is evidence there will be a major flu epidemic this coming fall. The indication is that we will see a return of the 1918 flu virus that is the most virulent form of the flu. In 1918 a half million Americans died. The projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans [this year].

Kathleen Sebelius? Nope! It is F. David Matthews, and the year was 1976. Quoted in this recent article in Salon about the *last* great epidemic of swine flu, when Gerry Ford vaccinated 40 million people, didn’t save anyone from swine flu but killed 30 people with Guillain Barre. Oui oui!

That should provide some calm in the wake of frenetic media activity about the approaching storm. So-called epidemics usually don’t turn out as badly as everyone thinks they will. Remember the bird flu panic? A reader turned me on to google trends, which lets you compare things like the number of google searchs for “swine flu” v “bird flu”. In other words how much people are freaking out about it. Well, this search shows that there were a few bird flu panics in 2005, but swine flu is now approaching its peak “freak out level” if you will (see sharp peak at furthest right side of the graph):

Google trends "freak-o-meter" shows swine flu catching up to bird flu.

Notice that the journalism or “CNN freak-o-meter” is going off the charts.

To help add to the anxiety, the CDC has posted this helpful “flu surge” software to help administrators plot out the growing pandemic. I am sure it is based only on valid assumptions. At least they won’t be losing their jobs in the recession. And, oh, the swine flu is doing a great job of keeping attention away from some of their recent debacles, like the fact that today it was announced that Atlanta attorney Andrew Speaker is bringing a law suit against the CDC for their shameful actions in publicly announcing that he had a drug resistant form of TB while he was getting married in Europe and that he couldn’t travel (even though they gave him permission to leave). He called to ask what to do so they said charter a jet (only $140,000, which he of course could not afford) so he flew back through Canada. They made a big publicity thing out of it which led to accusations that the CDC was hyping the case to generate more funding. Of course this came out in reporting by our local paper Atlanta Journal Constitution, and everyone is glad to see those kind of papers die out, aren’t they. Now, post marriage, with the fact revealed that he did not have a dangerous form of TB, he is pretty pissed off, and who can blame him? All the CDC can say is… thanks swine flu! Or is it H1N1?

Flu surge software from CDC

I couldn’t get it to work. Just as well.

Meanwhile swine flu anxiety spreads throughout the land.

LOLcat anxious over swine flu

At places like my employer Emory University people are flipping out, mailing daily updates on how to identify and treat the flu; yesterday they gave emergency powers in the case of an influenza pandemic to the Governor of the State of Georgia, Sonny Perdue. And yesterday the WHO upgraded the virus to a Phase #5, underwhich he can declare emergency powers. When asked if he was going to do so, he replied “Not when there has not been a single case yet in the State of Georgia.”

ROTFL! You can’t make this stuff up!

Oh, and Vice President Joe Biden told his family not to take ANY planes or subways, which freaked the travel industry out of course. Nice fear mongering, Joe. He should take a page from the CDC.

To put things in perspective, the actual causes of mortality in the US run down like this:

My source here was JAMA, but they didn’t add the 100,000 who die each year from prescription medications or related medical errors. That’s the problem with my fellow doctors, they don’t like to admit that their treatments sometimes hurt people.

I think the psychology of risk is interesting. Like why do people worry about an infection that isn’t even in their state, but not a car accident? I think we are hard wired to freak out over infections. We can smell people and animals who are sick, molecules from them literally enter our noses and impact neurons directly in our smell center that go direct to the emotion part of the brain, the amygdala, bypassing the parts of the brain involved in rational thought. We don’t “smell” car accidents in advance, or if we do it is too late. And what do we do if we smell someone sick? We tell our friends, so they can stay away.

In other news, the Mexican press is reporting local suspicions that the swine flu came from a giant Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation (CAFO) outside of La Gloria, Vera Cruz, Mexico, called Granjo Callas, a subsidiary of Smithfield Foods, where there are large amounts of animal waste and flies that could have been a vector. Mexican government officials, of course, blame Chinese CAFOs.

And although Alice B. Toklas would say that a Rose is a Rose is a Rose, apparently for swine flu you could say that a pig is a pig is a pig is a pig is a pig is a pig is a bird is a human. That’s right, 6/8 of the genetic fragments of the virus come from pigs, one comes from bird and one from human flu virus. That is why several experts are saying that the move to change its name from swine flu to something else is absurd. ”Scientifically it is a swine virus,” one expert said. Nevertheless both Muslim and Jewish groups as well as the Pork Industry are objecting to the name, on the logical grounds that, um, they don’t eat pork, therefore it is somehow unholy for them to get infected (make sense? religion never made much sense to me either). But they didn’t stop the CDC from officially changing the name to “H1N1″ or something like that. Too bad noone told their webmaster to stop calling it swine flu on their website. As for me, I am not changing the name anytime soon.

Don't call ME H1N1, that is if you want to get lucky, honey!

There are now 109 CDC laboratory confirmed cases in the US with one death. And in Congress they are hankering after closing the border with Mexico. All schools and businesses are now closed in Mexico, with the exception of emergency services, and the Fort Worth TX school system has been closed, there are other scattered school closings throughout the US, with a spreading of confirmed cases in 12 US States, including California, New York, Maine, Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, Arizona, Massachusetts, Nevada, Michigan and Washington State. There are also confirmed cases throught Europe and now Peru.

Distribution of swine flu cases in the US

So I guess we’ll all have to move to Africa.

BTW I am getting tired of this swine flu crap and hope to “move on” in the future, unless there is something really earth shattering that develops, other than stupid decisions by government officials.

Hat tip to Rick Lippin and Susie from Europe.