The Sky is Falling

At the risk of being branded a conspiracy theorist, I have a question. How many people actually have swine flu?

The medical bods in the governments of both Ireland and the U.K. are currently releasing, via various media outlets, data regarding the number of citizens struck down - thousands of new cases every day apparently.

Much moolah is being spent on setting up vaccination centres and even more dosh is being lost through uncertificated absenteeism. Does anyone out there in the real world actually know anyone who has contracted the bug? I don't mean someone who has taken time off work because they're feeling a bit icky as I'm sure that there are many, many people who've done so. I mean someone who genuinely has the lurgy in question. I don't personally know anyone in this situation, not even a friend of a friend of a friend.

I don't doubt that people have died from swine flu, underlying illnesses notwithstanding, but in the great scheme of things the numbers are thankfully low, fewer than are carried off by regular flu annually by all accounts.

I could be wrong - it's not unprecedented, ask the Brunette - but I just don't believe that the epidemic, or pandemic or whatever it's supposed to be, is real. It's not as if we haven't heard this before - whatever happened to bird flu? Every few months the powers-that-be come up with a new way to scare the populace, one that eventually fades away just in time to be replaced by the next potentially catastrophic...er...catastrophe.

The late, great Michael Crichton (yes, the author of Jurassic Park - don't laugh) wrote a novel called 'State of Fear', published in 2004. It's a typically Crichton-esque romp in which the hero has to save the world whilst being chased around by men with murderous intent, pulp fiction of the kind that you either love or hate. I loved it in a 'couple of days by the pool' way, but the really thought-provoking sections of the book are the appendices at the back.

In them Crichton puts forward the idea that there are a number of sectors in the developed world - government, media, law - with a vested interest in ensuring that the Great Unwashed are constantly on their guard against any amount of 'bad things' that threaten to wipe out their cosy lifestyles or, indeed, their very lives. There hasn't been a major conflict in the west since 1945, most smaller scale wars taking place far away from home in such exotic locations as Korea, Vietnam, the Falklands, Iraq and Afghanistan. The Cold War, with it's ever-present threat of nuclear meltdown, is over so what is going to occupy the minds of the plebs and allow the powers-that-be to retain and increase their wealth and influence whilst no-one's looking?

Well, now we have a paedophile outside every school, a new virus attached to every handshake, a terrorist on every street corner, a clogged artery in each mouthful of food and we're all going to drown, fry or freeze sometime next week (don't get me started on global warming).

The truth, as Crichton pointed out, is that there has never been a time in human history when so many of us in the first world have the expectation of living long, healthy and productive lives as right now. Of course there are wars and diseases and droughts and earthquakes but you have to be in the wrong part of town to be affected by these, and the majority of us in the developed world simply aren't.

The thing that worries me is that one day something seriously nasty is going to appear on the horizon and we'll all be so threat-weary that we'll ignore it. Hopefully I'll be long gone before that happens.

I'll close on that happy thought - I've got to go because I can feel a sniffle coming on...

Toodle-pip,
oldblodger