Why has news of swine flu gone “viral”?

Two years ago, when SARS bird flu fears caused people to kill off flocks and stop eating meat, I was living in San Francisco, at that time considered a hot spot for the virus to reach the US. At that time, I took a zen attitude, made sure to get plenty of rest, fruits, and vegetables, and didn’t worry, even in Chinatown.

Now I’m living right down the street from the workplace of one confirmed swine flu patients, an Energy Department staffer who had traveled with Obama recently to Mexico, came home and spread it to his family. But am I wearing a surgical mask? Nope.

Some people are very afraid. Chinese authorities have been quarantining travelers from Mexico willy-nilly, while the schools of Fort Worth, Texas, keeps its 80,000 students home for a week and people of faith are pushing not just prayer as a solution, but refraining from taking communion wine and even the traditional “handshake of peace.”

So why am I so unconcerned? Because I’ve taken a close look at the numbers. The Center for Disease Control estimates that about 36,000 people in the US die each year from the flu. But swine flu had only killed one person in the US, a Mexican toddler visiting Texas. Much more dangerous than swine flu is lightning strikes, which slay an average of 62 American lives per year, according to the NOAA. There have, however, been about 230 confirmed cases of this flu in the US.

Heart disease is the umber one killer in the US, claiming about 820,000 lives in the US in 2006, yet we don’t see people running screaming from McDonalds or buying up all the jogging shoes at Wal-Mart.

Even Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, says “by and large, people should carry on with their normal, everyday lives.” The experts and officials clearly state that the only people who need to change their behavior at all are those who show symptoms of the flu.

So, swine flu is more a disease of the press than the scary pandemic it’s supposed to be. But if so, why has basically every news outlet made a major news item out of a disease that has only claimed one death?

Is this media circus just a news Frankenstein gone out of control – once the media created demand for news on swine flu, it spread like wildfire? Or is this some scheme to sell more papers at a time when many news outlets are in danger of going on the dole? Some believe there is a more sinister reason at work, that someone has gotten the media train rolling, like preparing us to push through pet legislation by the pharmaceutical industry, or an effort by a government agency snatching up our civil liberties, or maybe a larger share of the federal government pie. Still others feel that this could be some smear on immigrants. (Buzz among conspiracy theorists has reached a pitch.) One thing is certain, it is a clear example of the dangers of media hype.

There is no clear indication of why this media storm around swine flu has been so pandemic, but this has certainly been an example of a news item gone, well, viral. Until the numbers get a little more convincing, though, I'm more worried about getting hit by lightning than death by swine flu.

weekend of giving voice to global justice

My feet are sore, my voice is scratchy, my dishes are piled high. I've just completed another fantastic weekend to give voice to global justice. 

I'd been organizing these actions with Global Justice Action, a fantastic and spirited group in the Washington DC area, for five months. We planned a weekend of action April 24-26 to oppose the neoliberalist agenda during the bi-annual meetings held between two very destructive organizations, the IMF and the World Bank. I helped with some of the more colorful tasks, such as throwing a fundraiser and driving around to "liberate" sign-making materials, but my main role in the group was to help with the media outreach.

About three weeks before our actions, G20 decision-makers met to address the global economic crisis. Ridiculously, they decided that they would address the crisis by prescribing more of the bad medicine that got us into this mess in the first place. They decided they would work to give the IMF another $1.1 trillion in funds - sort of like deciding to give a drug dealer control of the rehab.

Neoliberalist policies that the IMF is built upon push countries' economies further into the hole, and make the lives of people in the Third World a lot harder. Whether in the name of economic growth or human development, the IMF's fundamental role is highly problematic. Most countries would be better off if the IMF had never stepped in at all.

The IMF's failings are one reason not to choose them to bail us out. But there are other absurdities in choosing to fund them in our time of need. The IMF is a bank like any other, not a charity organization. It makes its billions off of the interest it collects when it makes emergency loans to countries who find themselves in crisis... why would it be to the IMF's benefit to try to help countries toward long-term sustainability?

This proposed boone of $1.1 trillion to the IMF, as frustrating as it was, gave our planned actions that much more significance. We were able to quickly pivot our messaging to include not only broad condemnation for these institutions, but to oppose the $1.1 trillion. We incorporated these concepts into messaging for all of our creative forms of resistance - the 5K Run on the Bank, the punk show, the roving exercise-themed dance party, the People's Economic Forum (eight hours of our own solutions to the economic crisis!), the family-friendly march, and more.

We wound up with a very high volume of press coverage for the weekend, including several major print outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, and all major TV news outlets such as ABC, CNN, and Fox News. It was nice to know that our impact was enhanced through these venues.

The outcome? Global decision-makers and the world got a clear message that the global justice movement is back. 

Time to get serious about blogging now!