sharon sanders
Editor-in-Chief & President
Bird flu and mass hysteria
Saif Ahmed
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His name was Enza
I opened my window
And in-flew-enza."
SO goes the nursery rhyme from 1918 inspired by the flu pandemic. Today we have arrived at a level of hysteria that might motivate poets to compose again. This isn't the hysteria causing little girls to faint. (My conspiratorial mind says that's some kind of experiment too). This is the real thing. Manufactured by the media, this hysteria is changing behaviour patterns world-wide.
In the pantheon of mass murderers, the avian influenza (AI) or bird flu virus stands out today in people's consciousness. However this "awareness" has little correlation to the facts. Fear mongering by the media who selectively chose the right sound-bites from the right scientists have created terror beyond logic or reason.
Mass hysteria is also driving people to make irrational decisions. A section of the populace has decided that deshi chicken was "safer." And that duck eggs are better than chicken eggs. Facts don't stand in the way of hysteria. Most so-called deshi chicken are either layer males or coloured farm chickens. Or that ducks can just as well be AI infected. What totally gets overlooked is that cooking meats and eggs completely kills the virus.
Let us look at cases of mass killings in the 20th century. We all know about the Nazi Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking, the Armenian Genocide, and more recently the genocides in Rwanda and Kosovo. Today we all know about the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 and we all know there is a link to bird flu of today. We hardly hear of the numbers dead in Vietnam or Iraq in the mass media. While the Nazi Holocaust is prominent in peoples consciousness, the deaths of 9 million Russians at the hands of the Nazis is relatively unknown. And totally absent from the mass media is the 3 million Bengalis killed by the British in a man-made famine in the same period. It seems that what is bad news is determined by whoever controls the media.
How is that related to the bird flu situation today? Even when it comes to disease, the media decides what constitutes news. And in most cases only diseases that have an impact on rich countries get coverage. According to WHO the total number of deaths from bird flu since 2003 is 225 as of February 16. Compare that to these numbers:
* Diarrheal diseases kill over 2 million children a year (225+ per hour)
* Malaria kills over 3 million a year.
Yet SARS which killed less than 300 people and AI which killed 225 got more media coverage in their panic years than the two big killers did in the last decade. The reasons for this appear to be the same as the reasons for the lack of media coverage of the Bengal famine. The victims of diarrhea and malaria have no control of the media.
In the case of avian influenza or bird flu, every article seems to have a note about the 1918 flu pandemic that killed almost 20 million and to have linked that flu strain to an avian flu. International organisations have expressed fears that this virus may mutate into a lethal strain similar to the 1918 strain. This argument does not derive its strength from real facts.
In 2005 scientists found a body of a 1918 pandemic victim buried and preserved in the Alaskan permafrost and have isolated what is possibly the virus responsible for the pandemic. What they found and what has been reported in the media is that it is "similar" to the bird flu virus of today. The genome of the 1918 virus indicates that it was avian in origin. However there were no reports of disease outbreaks among birds at the time. The avian origin of the virus doesn't contribute to its deadliness. However, that virus had the ability to jump to humans without needing to borrow gene sequences from human viruses. The fear is that H5N1 will acquire the same ability.
Is there a risk? Of course! Is the risk the same as it was in 1918? Not by a long shot. Even if the H5N1 acquired the ability to mutate to human form, the realities on the ground are very different. In 1918, the First World War was going on. Most medical resources were diverted to war. The world's knowledge of viruses was virtually non-existent. Shortage of resources made people and communities vulnerable to disease anyways. None of that is true today.
As of today, there is no confirmed case of human to human transmission. Even in the case of bird to human transmissions, they happened only to people with extensive physical contact with infected birds, i.e. poultry farm workers.
To put the risk in perspective you're thousands of times more likely to die by:
* Getting struck by lightning.
* Falling in your bathroom.
* Drowning.
* Getting shot by a jilted lover.
The role played by the media in hyping diseases like SARS and AI is not only irresponsible but dangerous. Because of the media coverage, governments prefer to act on the issues in the public eye, thus diverting essential but limited funds from other issues, directly causing loss of lives. It is also destroying a vital industry for our country and depriving people of what has recently become the cheapest form of protein.
Lets look at the issue from another perspective. Tamiflu is the only drug known to be effective against bird flu. Since 2003, 3 billion dollars worth of Tamiflu was sold for bird flu treatment. Less than a thousand dollars worth of it was used. 3 billion dollars buys a lot of treated mosquito nets and oral saline. 3 billion dollars is also a good incentive to promote mass hysteria through the media.
Avian influenza today is an economic problem, not a public health one. Millions of farmers will be impoverished by it. In the future it could mutate into a lethal human virus. However today there are other diseases and sicknesses, Aids, malaria, and diarrhea, for example, that will probably take many more lives than AI ever will. Existing diseases should get priority over a potential but non-existent one.
Saif Ahmed is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=24342
Saif Ahmed
<table align="right" border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="200"><tbody><tr> <td>
Tanvir Ahmed / Drik news
</td></tr></tbody></table>"I had a birdHis name was Enza
I opened my window
And in-flew-enza."
SO goes the nursery rhyme from 1918 inspired by the flu pandemic. Today we have arrived at a level of hysteria that might motivate poets to compose again. This isn't the hysteria causing little girls to faint. (My conspiratorial mind says that's some kind of experiment too). This is the real thing. Manufactured by the media, this hysteria is changing behaviour patterns world-wide.
In the pantheon of mass murderers, the avian influenza (AI) or bird flu virus stands out today in people's consciousness. However this "awareness" has little correlation to the facts. Fear mongering by the media who selectively chose the right sound-bites from the right scientists have created terror beyond logic or reason.
Mass hysteria is also driving people to make irrational decisions. A section of the populace has decided that deshi chicken was "safer." And that duck eggs are better than chicken eggs. Facts don't stand in the way of hysteria. Most so-called deshi chicken are either layer males or coloured farm chickens. Or that ducks can just as well be AI infected. What totally gets overlooked is that cooking meats and eggs completely kills the virus.
Let us look at cases of mass killings in the 20th century. We all know about the Nazi Holocaust, the Rape of Nanking, the Armenian Genocide, and more recently the genocides in Rwanda and Kosovo. Today we all know about the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 and we all know there is a link to bird flu of today. We hardly hear of the numbers dead in Vietnam or Iraq in the mass media. While the Nazi Holocaust is prominent in peoples consciousness, the deaths of 9 million Russians at the hands of the Nazis is relatively unknown. And totally absent from the mass media is the 3 million Bengalis killed by the British in a man-made famine in the same period. It seems that what is bad news is determined by whoever controls the media.
How is that related to the bird flu situation today? Even when it comes to disease, the media decides what constitutes news. And in most cases only diseases that have an impact on rich countries get coverage. According to WHO the total number of deaths from bird flu since 2003 is 225 as of February 16. Compare that to these numbers:
* Diarrheal diseases kill over 2 million children a year (225+ per hour)
* Malaria kills over 3 million a year.
Yet SARS which killed less than 300 people and AI which killed 225 got more media coverage in their panic years than the two big killers did in the last decade. The reasons for this appear to be the same as the reasons for the lack of media coverage of the Bengal famine. The victims of diarrhea and malaria have no control of the media.
In the case of avian influenza or bird flu, every article seems to have a note about the 1918 flu pandemic that killed almost 20 million and to have linked that flu strain to an avian flu. International organisations have expressed fears that this virus may mutate into a lethal strain similar to the 1918 strain. This argument does not derive its strength from real facts.
In 2005 scientists found a body of a 1918 pandemic victim buried and preserved in the Alaskan permafrost and have isolated what is possibly the virus responsible for the pandemic. What they found and what has been reported in the media is that it is "similar" to the bird flu virus of today. The genome of the 1918 virus indicates that it was avian in origin. However there were no reports of disease outbreaks among birds at the time. The avian origin of the virus doesn't contribute to its deadliness. However, that virus had the ability to jump to humans without needing to borrow gene sequences from human viruses. The fear is that H5N1 will acquire the same ability.
Is there a risk? Of course! Is the risk the same as it was in 1918? Not by a long shot. Even if the H5N1 acquired the ability to mutate to human form, the realities on the ground are very different. In 1918, the First World War was going on. Most medical resources were diverted to war. The world's knowledge of viruses was virtually non-existent. Shortage of resources made people and communities vulnerable to disease anyways. None of that is true today.
As of today, there is no confirmed case of human to human transmission. Even in the case of bird to human transmissions, they happened only to people with extensive physical contact with infected birds, i.e. poultry farm workers.
To put the risk in perspective you're thousands of times more likely to die by:
* Getting struck by lightning.
* Falling in your bathroom.
* Drowning.
* Getting shot by a jilted lover.
The role played by the media in hyping diseases like SARS and AI is not only irresponsible but dangerous. Because of the media coverage, governments prefer to act on the issues in the public eye, thus diverting essential but limited funds from other issues, directly causing loss of lives. It is also destroying a vital industry for our country and depriving people of what has recently become the cheapest form of protein.
Lets look at the issue from another perspective. Tamiflu is the only drug known to be effective against bird flu. Since 2003, 3 billion dollars worth of Tamiflu was sold for bird flu treatment. Less than a thousand dollars worth of it was used. 3 billion dollars buys a lot of treated mosquito nets and oral saline. 3 billion dollars is also a good incentive to promote mass hysteria through the media.
Avian influenza today is an economic problem, not a public health one. Millions of farmers will be impoverished by it. In the future it could mutate into a lethal human virus. However today there are other diseases and sicknesses, Aids, malaria, and diarrhea, for example, that will probably take many more lives than AI ever will. Existing diseases should get priority over a potential but non-existent one.
Saif Ahmed is a freelance contributor to The Daily Star.
http://www.thedailystar.net/story.php?nid=24342
