Let's take a look under the hospital gown of this panic-infested disease, keeping in mind that the venerable WHO shrieked hysterically when the first cases were reported, and gave Hamthrax it's next-to-highest "warning level"... Level 5... which means that a pandemic is "imminent." That doesn't mean that it COULD happen... it means that it WILL. What, exactly, *IS* a "pandemic"? With no small amount of irony, the word "pandemic" comes from the Greek "pan," which literally means "all," and "demos," which means "people." Pandemic means, literally, "all people."
Now... weeks after this shrieking warning blared its way through the airwaves, where are we? How bad is it? Do we have areas roped off with barbed wire, guard dogs, and tanks a la "Outbreak"? Not so much.
As of today's date, there have been 4,694 cases of swine flu reported... WORLD-WIDE. To give you some perspective, that's ONE in every 1.3 MILLION people. And deaths? So far there have been... wait for it... 48. World-wide. That's one in every 125 MILLION people.
Now... according to the Royal Aeronautical Society, there are approx. 24,000 deaths each year from LIGHTNING strikes. That means you have a 500 times GREATER chance of getting killed by lightning than you do of dying from Hamthrax. Or, to put a finer point on it, you are 36,125 TIMES more likely to die of... say... "runaway diarrhea" than Swine Flu. In fact, you are 20 TIMES more likely to get eaten by a tiger than you are to die of the Swine Flu. And no, I'm not making this up. And yet, curiously, I have yet to see the WHO raise The Trots to a Level 5 Pandemic Panic.
Now... if you REALLY wanna talk "pandemic," let's review the numbers of the Influenza Pandemic in 1918-1919. Estimates on that one range from 13 to 20 MILLION deaths world-wide. And here we are, reduced to a quivering, panic-stricken puddle over... 48 deaths.
So, to Enquiring Minds everywhere, the question is dutifully begged, "Why, then, all the hysteria over Hamthrax"?
There are many reasons, of course. We have become far more reactionary as a people than our stronger, more hearty predecessors. And then one must consider the old standby villain... the Almighty Buck.
Not to point fingers carelessly (and lord knows Big Pharmaceuticals would NEVER pull anything remotely shady), but consider our benevolent "friend," Hoffman-La Roche Pharmaceuticals... maker of Tamiflu, the only effective flu vaccine on the market. In March of 2009, the Swine Flu was discovered in Mexico, and was ultimately traced back to a 4-year-old boy on a pig farm there. Shares of Hoffman-La Roche were the lowest they had been in the last 5 years... $26.50/share. Fast-forward one month to April 10, when the WHO inexplicably raised Hamthrax to a "Level 5" outbreak... and La Roche shares shot up to $35.05/share for a one month share increase of over 25%. Not bad, considering that the lion's share of the profit on this drug had already been realized when La Roche raked in billions over the last 5 years by fear-mongering governments world-wide to stockpile millions of doses of the vaccine, which the helpful La Roche people strongly warned would "not be nearly enough" to handle the swine flu "pandemic." How magnanimous of them. Imagine the dismay in the boardroom when the numbers weren't nearly as dire as they must've hoped. If you want to see just how dismayed they are, look at where their stock went AFTER the "pandemic" didn't even reach "getting-eaten-by-a-tiger" levels.
Oh, well. Maybe I'm just becoming cynical in my old age. Or maybe there's something I'm missing here. I don't know. You decide. I'm not feeling too well.
