By Stewart N. Thorpe of Citizen Press Revolution
http://www.myspace.com/citizenpressrevolution
While relatively insignificant scares of
West Nile virus and the Avian Flu dominates headlines, real killers like AIDs and cancer destroy mass amounts of lives. AIDs continues to be a ferocious epidemic in
Africa, but one person someone in the
USA gets diagnosed with the
West Nile virus and, boom, headlines everywhere.
How insignificant is the
West Nile virus? Carla A. Vasha, a medical doctor fighting against aerial spraying for the
West Nile virus (in
Davis, California), stated that "from a medical perspective, the risk of serious
West Nile infection is so low as to be comparatively insignificant. If someone is bitten by an infected mosquito, a rare occurrence, it [more likely] simply leads to healthy immunity and protective antibodies." Meanwhile, the pesticides might actually increase the mosquito population because the toxins are also harmful to those that prey on the mosquito population (such as certain insects, bats, or mosquito fish), as well as things such as honey bees (an important issue in
Utah).
One human becomes documented the entire (yes, the entire) season in
Utah and suddenly it becomes front page news in all of our newspapers.
Meanwhile, where was coverage in the main newspapers that 500 women in Mexico, contesting a corrupt election of a governor, seized control of a state-controlled television station and forced the staff there to broadcast a video exposing the excessive and widespread police brutality against the protestors? This has much more meaning and importance than the tiny mouse with claws known as the
West Nile virus. And as for the Avian Flu, the vast majority of those who were diagnosed lived with birds all of the time. Most people do not. And though it continues to be used to scare people from real issues, it has never and will never spread like influenza or diarrhea.
We get distorted scares such as the
West Nile virus and the Avian Flu and over-focus on pseudo-news like Britney Spears getting pregnant or Mel Gibson being an idiot. These news is not going to help any of us. It only distract us from what needs our attention.
And in the case of the
West Nile virus, it can take something that is no significant threat at all to the public health, and make it a bigger contender to be just that.
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