What swine flu reveals about the culture of fear

"Today, fear entrepreneurs come in all shapes and sizes. Some are moral crusaders who genuinely believe that the very fabric of society is threatened by evil forces. At the other end of the spectrum are the salespeople and hustlers of the market of fear. It is useful to distinguish between the different species of scaremonger, so here is your ‘Guide To Spotting The Different Actors In The Dramatisation Of Fear’."

 

Frank Furedi from Spiked Online identifies the various types of scaremongers:

 

Religious moral entrepreneurs

 

Secular moral entrepreneurs

 

Experts

 

Health activists

 

Environmentalists

 

Relationship professionals

 

Law-and-order moral entrepreneurs

 

Fear-market entrepreneurs

 

You can read more about each in What swine flu reveals about the culture of fear

 

He concludes:

 

We should note that, although these eight groups are conceptually distinct from one another, their activities and interests often overlap. Health activists are sometimes associated with fear entrepreneurs who sell various products on the market; religious moral entrepreneurs have formed alliances with both environmentalists or therapists working as ‘relationship professionals’. Indeed, despite their diverse interests, the work of these different groups tends to reinforce scaremongering as a whole, as they all contribute to the construction of a climate where promoting fear and anxiety comes to be seen as a legitimate pursuit. And as the performance of fear around the current drama titled ‘Swine Flu Pandemic’ shows, all of these groups are competing for a role in today’s dramatisation of doom.

 

Frank Furedi is author of Culture of Fear (buy this book from Amazon(UK)) and Invitation To Terror: The Expanding Empire of The Unknown (buy this book from Amazon(UK)), both published by Continuum Press. Visit Furedi’s website here.

 

Hat tip - Andrew Bolt "The eight merchants of fear"

 

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

Aussie woman had swine flu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But got better.

 

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

Celebrity Swine Flu...

 

We all know who gave it to him...

 

 

 

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

2.3 million and counting

That's the number of news stories about swine flu on Google News.   As I understand it, the actual number of cases hasn't even reached 1,000 yet.   Confirmed deaths around 20 or so.   But despite the fact that this latest swine flu is in all likelihood not as virulent as ordinary seasonal flu, (which kills on average 36,000 people every year in the US alone), the US government is talking about diverting resources from the production of vaccines for seasonal flu to one for swine flu!   Junkfood Science has more in "All of humanity under threat…"

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

Swine flu - CALM DOWN!

Sigh. The media and conspiracy theorists and nutcase losers are all going at it hammer and tongs. A Republican congresswoman from the US has archly observed that the last time there was an outbreak of swine flu in America another Democrat, ie Jimmy Carter, was the president and with the heavy insinuation that this couldn't just be a coincidence! Too bad the president at the time was actually the Republican Gerald Ford. And YES!, there is nothing new about an outbreak of swine flu people. To put this into some context, the number of confirmed cases (as at the time Sandy from Junkfood Science wrote this article) was 117. The number of news stories about swine flu? 117,607. Though the situation is not helped when the director general of the World Health Organisation, Dr Margaret Chan, stupidly says “It is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic.” Okay, in one sense that is correct. A pandemic is by definition a worldwide event and there is some level of threat. But we still do not know what level of threat precisely and, to be honest, you'd have to say the initial indications are that this isn't going to be any more severe than most epidemics of flu. One statistic that also helps put the current situation into its proper context is this - every year in the United States between 30,000 and 50,000 people die from influenza. In just one week recently - 12-18 April - there were 25,925 recorded cases of influenza in the States, with 55 children dying of the disease. The current death toll in the US from swine flu is one. A two year old Mexican child with underlying health problems, who had been airlifted in a serious condition to a hospital in Texas. There's more at the Junkfood Science link above. Do yourself a favour and read what Sandy has to say and, for Christ's sake, calm down. The other thing that worries me in situations like this is the tendency for governments to feel they have to be seen to DO SOMETHING. Anything, as long as they appear to be in control of things. Oh dear. We all know how that so often ends up, don't we Andrew Bolt surveys a history of hysterical headlines: “We could have a billion people dying worldwide” - the great bird flu scare of 2005 that killed 257 “Apocalypse bug!” and “Killer virus” (CNN and Newsweek respectively) - the great Ebola scare of 1995 that killed 800 people in Africa “The projections are that the virus will kill one million Americans.” (US Health, Education and Welfare Department) - the great swine flu scare of 1976, during which just one American died from the virus, but another 33 from the vaccinations the US Government ordered in its Do Something panic “Race to prevent world epidemic” - the great bird flu scare of 1997 that killed six people “Could have a similar impact to the 1918 flu epidemic that killed 50 million” (BBC) - the great SARS scare of 2003, which killed around 1,000 He ends with the very sensible question "We know life is too short to forever fear a wild new way of dying. Um, don’t we?" (Okay, had to pull this from the comments left for his post. Somebody said that with the current state of the federal budget, we should be afraid of Swan Flu instead. To which somebody else replied "Just the thought of getting the Swan Flu gives me a Ruddache." Well, I thought it was funny.) Finally - http://doihavepigflu.com/ “No man, nor any body of men, is good enough, or wise enough, to dispense with the tonic of criticism” – T H Huxley

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

Swine Flu Is Evolution in Action

Health Thu, Apr 30, 2009 at 10:55:24 am PDT

Last weekend in a post about swine flu, I remarked that the appearance of this virus is a perfect example of rapid evolution in action. Amazingly, this triggered a couple of emails from people denying that viruses evolve, and one comment from a reader who said I was “becoming an extremist” because I pointed out this simple, uncontroversial fact.

Here’s an article at LiveScience on this subject, with statements from other extremists such as bioengineers and wildlife researchers: Swine Flu Is Evolution in Action.

While much of the modern controversy over evolution centers around whether humans evolved from non-human primates (scientists overwhelmingly agree this is the case), some people still try to poke holes in the theory of evolution, one of the most solid theories in science. In addition to evidence from ancient fossils and modern DNA studies, one of the many lines of evidence supporting evolution is that it can quite simply be seen in action among some species that evolve particularly rapidly, such as fruit flies.

But on no stage does evolution unfold more quickly or with more potentially sickening or lethal consequences for humans than among viruses. It is, to pass on a scary phrase used among scientists and marketers, viral evolution. And you could be the star host of this all-too-often deadly show.

The sudden ability of the new swine flu virus to hop from pigs to humans and then to skip from person to person, at least in Mexico, is an excellent example of evolution at work.

“Yes, this is definitely evolution,” said Michael Deem, a bioengineer at Rice University in Texas.

Deem studies how evolution is affected not just by mutations but by the exchange of entire genes and sets of genes. Viruses, which are basically packets of DNA with a protein coat, are really good at this. Viruses are also really good at exploiting the fact that we humans cough and sneeze without covering ourselves and generally don’t wash our hands frequently in a day.

“Viruses have evolved to exploit human contact as a way of spreading,” points out Peter Daszak of the Wildlife Trust, whose team 14 months ago predicted just this sort of evolution in an animal flu, coming from Latin America to the United States after evolving to infect people.

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33533_Swine_Flu_Is_Evolution_in_Action

Posted via email from Garth's posterous

The crazies come out to play!

Swine flu softens brains Andrew Bolt Wednesday, April 29, 2009 at 09:45am Truly, we have more to fear from fear itself - and from the conspiracy kooks fear unleashes. No, I’m not taking about global warming this time but swine flu, and the program put out last night by America’s Coast to Coast, which boasts 3 million weekly listeners: George Noory hosted a special edition of C2C with examination and analysis of the recent swine flu outbreak. 2nd hour guest, Dr. Gary Ridenour suggested that this virus could further mutate and ... in a worst-case scenario, 5-15 million people could die. He estimated there was a 40% chance that the new virus was man-made, and was released either accidentally or intentionally. Appearing in the latter half of the show, Alex Jones and Stephen Quayle both agreed the new swine virus was not natural. It’s a “genetically altered bioweapon,” possibly being “beta-tested in the field” to target specific races, Quayle contended… Quayle suggested the virus may be part of a global plan to reduce the population, and that the mysterious deaths of microbiologists in recent years could be connected to this outbreak-- scientists who could help stop a pandemic were taken out. (Thanks to reader Rosemary.) UPDATE Peter Curson, professor of population and security at Sydney University’s Centre for International Security Studies, isn’t dismissing the dangers at all, but warns: HERE we go again. Just when we thought it was safe to go outside, the threat of another potential flu pandemic raises its head and hysteria builds again. Once again there is talk of quarantine, airport surveillance, travel restrictions and public closures… Swine flu has a long and interesting history. While there is no record of it causing a human flu pandemic, this latest outbreak stirs memories of the 1976 public health debacle in the US when 200 soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey and Fort Meade in Maryland fell ill with what turned out to be swine flu, causing a wave of panic to spread through the community and public health authorities. In response the US government began a nationwide vaccination campaign. When a pandemic never eventuated the program was halted, but not before hundreds of people had developed Guillain-Barre syndrome as a result of vaccination, including at least 33 deaths. It seems that even when we act with the best intentions we can unwittingly cause human tragedy. If nothing else, this outbreak demonstrates how easily human perception and reaction can transform an epizootic (animal epidemic) or a localised human outbreak into something resembling human Armageddon. Remember severe acute respiratory syndrome and bird flu? We seem destined to relive repeatedly our epidemiological past, and what we always seem to get is two epidemics, not one. The first is an epizootic or a human epidemic. The second is often an extraordinary epidemic of fear, hysteria and panic, partly orchestrated by government and media comments about how much our health and wellbeing is threatened. Here’s one of the public service ads US authorities ran during the 1976 swine flu panic, urging people to have vaccinations that caused at least 30 to die: UPDATE 2 ForeignPolicy.com says Twitter is perfect for spreading fear - as it’s now demonstrating: Unlike basic internet search—which has been already been nicely used by Google to track emerging flu epidemics—Twitter seems to have introduced too much noise into the process: as opposed to search requests which are generally motivated only by a desire to learn more about a given subject, too many Twitter conversations about swine flu seem to be motivated by desires to fit in, do what one’s friends do (i.e. tweet about it) or simply gain more popularity. In situations like this, there is some pathological about people wanting to post yet another status update containing the coveted most-searched words – only for the sake of gaining more people to follow them… That aside, the “swine flu” Twitter-scare has once again proved the importance of context—and how badly most Twitter conversations are hurt by the lack of it. The problem with Twitter is that there is very little context you can fit into 140 characters, even less so if all you are doing is watching a stream of messages that mention “swine flu."… (I)n the context of a global pandemic—where media networks are doing their best to spice up an already serious threat—having millions of people wrap up all their fears into 140 characters and blurt them out in the public might have some dangerous consequences, networked panic being one of them. If you think that my concerns about context are overblown, here are just a few status updates from random Twitter users that would barely make you calmer (or more informed) about what’s going on: I’m concerned about the swine flu outbreak in us and mexico could it be germ warfare?… Good grief this swine flu thing is getting serious. 8/9 specimens tested were prelim positive in NYC. so that’s Tx, Mexico and now Nyc… Swine flu? Wow. All that pork infecting people....beef and chicken have always been meats of choice… UPDATE 3 A good time to recall Michael Fumento’s 2005 piece, written during a bird flu scare: “THE INDICATION IS THAT we will see a return of the 1918 flu virus that is the most virulent form of flu,” warns America’s top health official. “In 1918, half a million people died. The projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans . . . ” A quotation ripped from today’s papers about an impending “bird flu” pandemic? No, the year was 1976 and the prediction of a deadly “swine flu” overshot the mark by 999,999 deaths (although dozens did die from the vaccine campaign). That’s something to remember amid the current alarms. Another is that we’ve been here before with the identical virus over which the feathers are now flying, avian influenza type H5N1, which first hit poultry flocks in 1997. “Race to Prevent World Epidemic of Lethal ‘Bird Flu,’” and “Hong Kong ‘Bird Flu’ Could be the Next Big Outbreak,” blared the headlines then. The world death toll from that “wave”? Six. And let’s not forget the outbreak of SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) two years ago, which led to 750 stories in the New York Times and Washington Post--one per death worldwide, as it turned out. The 71 U.S. cases of SARS, which resulted in zero deaths, did not “Overwhelm U.S. Health System,” as CNN had predicted. None of which is to say there won’t be another flu pandemic. There were three in the last century, after all. But that gives us absolutely no idea when the next will come, nor whether it will be any relative of H5N1, nor what its impact will be. Two of those 20th-century pandemics weren’t particularly severe, while the other was catastrophic. (Pandemic, by the way, does not mean “deadly epidemic"--it means “worldwide epidemic.") What we can say with confidence is that there is never such a thing as helpful hysteria. And the line between informing the public and starting a panic is being crossed every day now by politicians, public health officials, and journalists.

Posted via email from Garth's posterous