Mesothelioma, Swine Flu, repeat.
It seems that the top two health news stories these days are mesothelioma and swine flu.
Three schools are closing in Hillsborough County right here in Florida this week, after 5 probable cases of swine flu were reported.
They are closing the schools, scrubbing them from top to bottom, scrubbing all of the buses, and every single inch of the schools, and all extra curricular activities are also canceled.
"Freedom High School and Wilson Middle School will be closed because two people suspected of having swine flu attend those schools.
Also, Liberty Middle School will be closed because it shares cafeteria service with Freedom."
Mesothelioma is in the news a lot lately too because they have come up with new and better ways to diagnose and treat it, and because people are starting to win wrongful death lawsuits.
I found the wrongful death lawsuit interesting because of this;
"A Florida jury awarded nearly $1 million to the widow of a power plant worker who died as a result of mesothelioma caused by exposure to asbestos. However, the majority of blame for the worker's mesothelioma death was attributed to Gulf Power, who was not a party to the wrongful death lawsuit."
Say what?
How can the majority of his death be blamed to a company who was not involved in the lawsuit, but the widow won the case anyway?
I don't understand any of this stuff.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting kind of tired of all of this sickness panic that the media loves to do.
Honestly, I don't know if the swine flu is at pandemic levels, there's only a reported 717 probable case of it world-wide, so does that really qualify as pandemic?
Every single year, 36,000 people die from the regular old flu, and only 20 deaths from the swine flu world-wide so far.
So should we all be panicking right now?
I know we should all be cautious, wash our hands, don't go near people who are sick, don't lick any doorknobs etc, but panic the way the media is portraying this whole thing to be?
Nah.
Comments
The media hysteria over this is completely ridiculous. It's not even as nasty as the regular seasonal flu which as you say kills up to 40,000 people a year without the media saying anything at all about it.
Now an ebola pandemic? THAT would get my attention...LOL!
Posted by: Chris | May 4, 2009 7:43 AM
If they are going to close down schools, then the parents need to keep their kids at home. It defeats the purpose of closing the schools, if parents are only going to turn around and take them out to other public places.
This guy on Twitter who lives in Texas said that they closed schools in his area. He went to go see the new Wolverine movie, and said that the theater was crowded with kids. If they can go to the movies, they can go to school.
And here I was, hoping that the retirement of Justice David Souter would give the news media something else to talk about, speculations as to who might be chosen to take his place, etc. But swine fly still leads and takes up most of the news. Silly me!
Posted by: Christine | May 4, 2009 12:11 PM
Every single year, 36,000 people die from the regular old flu. OMG, that is what I have been saying all along. The media makes me sick. They hype everyone up and for nothing. There is one fool at my work that caused a few to get into a panic. I told them that they had a better chance to get the reg. flu and to calm the heck down.
Posted by: Kelli | May 7, 2009 8:17 PM