What’s the Big Deal About Swine Flu?

Not that I’m a medical expert, but don’t people die from the flu every year?  As a matter of fact, don’t people die in large, unthinkable quantities from things like lack of sanitation, curable disease, and war?

Aren’t people eating mud in some parts of Asia to fill their stomachs?

Or what about the nearly million people killed in a genocidal war sweeping Darfur?

I guess these questions are mostly rhetorical, but my point is: why does something like the swine flu get so much coverage and attention when it seems like a small threat, and something like lack of sanitation and access to potable water in many parts of the world get so little attention when it’s clearly so horrible and threatening to human life?

It’s that swine flu threatens us all, not just people overseas that we can’t see.  It probably also has something to do with our fear of the unseen and unknown.  And, in sum, these things are then taken advantage of by those who can gain whatever business they can from this unfortunate epidemic.

Why do I seem so angry about this?  Probably because there are so many other unfortunate things going on in this world that are much more dangerous, much more real, and have been going on for much longer with no attention at all.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 29th, 2009 at 1:07 am and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.