No disrespect to those who have a family member that died from the swine flu, nor to those that went through the illness and recovered. That flu does not sound like fun. Maybe this is only happening in my part of the world, but what I'm finding a bit nuts is the amount of attention the media is giving to this. In my opinion, such coverage is scaring people unnecessarily. When one is bombarded with hourly news reports on the number of cases diagnosed, and the major newscasts of the day making the "pandemic" the top story day after day, and dedicating a fair amount of time to it, people think that if they get a sniffle that they are going to die of the swine flu. Many are wanting to get their hands on the drug "Tamiflu" just in case. (The makers of Tamiflu are rubbing their hands in glee as fear of flu sells drugs!) But if antiviral drugs are used as prevention rather than treatment, the viruses become more resistant to them, so that when we actually do need the drugs they do not work as well.

The fact is that other than in Mexico, this flu does not appear to be deadly, and the numbers that are getting sick in the scheme of things does not appear to be very high, or at least not yet. To be throwing around words like "pandemic" seems over the top for what appears to be happening, at least to my uneducated thinking.

Each year, far more people get sick with the seasonal flu, but we don't see school closures, or healthy kids being told to stay home from school for a week in case they might be contagious, as happened in Montreal this week. Each year, it is a different strain of seasonal flu that hits us, and on average about 30,000 to 36,000 Americans and 700 to 2500 Canadians die from seasonal flu each year. Will that many actually die from swine flu this year?? Imagine if the seasonal flu were covered in the media each year in the manner that swine flu is now being covered. We'd be afraid to live our lives!

I'm not saying that we should not be informed - just that so much coverage makes people scared. People need information on what they can do to stay healthy, but that info needs to be delivered in a factual way without the hype about the spread of a pandemic. When people hear the word "pandemic", they think "deadly illness", and apart from in Mexico, this flu thus far has NOT been deadly.

The bottom line is we need to make ourselves less susceptible to getting sick by building up our immune system through adequate sleep, good quality food, some fermented and raw food to build up our good bacteria in our gut, enough exercise etc. We should wash our hands frequently.

And in order to minimize the spread of germs, if we feel sick, we should stay home. And of course, avoid touching our eyes, nose, and mouth. We should cough or sneeze into our sleeve rather than into our hands. Germs on our hands get spread to door knobs, phones etc. where others get infected. Tissue or handkerchiefs need to be used with care so as not to get germs onto the hands. Here is a fun educational video that gets the point across Enjoy! Cough or sneeze into your sleeve.

Related Posts:

The vaccine controversy
Bacteria, our immune system and food-borne illness
Problems with children's cold medications

Sibbald B. Estimates of flu-related deaths rise with new statistical models CMAJ • March 18, 2003; 168 (6)

Copyright 2009 Vreni Gurd

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