I’m Scared of Everything!

Lest you incur my anger, do not ask my opinion of the media. That’s who I blame.
So, let’s think rationally for a minute, shall we? What, of the major scares, have you actually come into close personal contact with in the past ten years? We’ve had SARS, AIDS, Y2K (did you build an underground bunker?), West Nile virus, anthrax, terrorism, ebola, and now avian flu. Remember how huge those stories were? Remember the Toronto travel ban for SARS? Remember how many vaccines people bought? Remember Cipro for anthrax?

Regarding the current scare-of-the-week, avian flu, the media reports would have us believe we’re all going to die in the very near future. A simple news search on Google for avian flu as of September 30 shows these headlines:

• Expert Predicts ‘Perfect Set-Up’ for Avian Flu Pandemic
• Flu pandemic’s toll inestimable, WHO says
• Country braces for likely winter avian flu outbreak

An early prediction from a U.N. Official, whatever that is, predicted 150 million deaths from avian flu. The logic being that the Spanish flu in 1918-1919 killed up to 50 million, and extrapolating that number to today’s population, you get 150 million. Well, I bet I can better frighten you with even more exciting logic. In the 1330s, 25 million people died of Bubonic Plague in Europe (also called Black Death). This was about 25% of the European population. In today’s numbers, 25% of world population would be 1.5 billion people. Now go sit in the corner with the lights off and suck your thumb.
What’s interesting though, is that the article describing in “inestimable toll” speaks of the World Health Organization’s retreat from their original prediction of 150 million deaths to an estimate of between two and 7.4 million (not exactly what the headline made me think the article was about). Again, let’s use some reason here. Using the WHO’s number, and given the population of the earth; about 6 billion, you have a 0.1% chance of dying from the disease. I would argue it’s much less than that considering the riches of our nation. Of course, these numbers assume that the WHO’s predictions are right. We’ve known about the avian flu since 1997, and have been waiting for the apocolypse since. That’s eight years, people. So far, a grand total of sixty-six people have died from avian flu, none of which have been verified as human-to-human transference.
I can only assume that the 7.4 million number is for the lifetime of the inevitable pandemic, and are total deaths due to the disease for our generation, thus a 1 in 1000 chance of dying from avian flu in an entire lifetime. You have a 1 in 77 chance of dying in a motor vehicle accident in your lifetime, thus you are thirteen times more likely to die in a car accident than by avian flu, yet we think nothing of driving wherever and whenever all our lives. You are four times more likely to die by falling, yet we don’t fear walking. (Source: NSC.org) According to the Center for Disease Control, you have a 0.8% chance of dying by disease in your lifetime anyway, which is eight times more than avian flu. This number is from a specific year; 2002. So presumably if there is a pandemic of some sort, the number gets bumped up a little; to 0.9%. Big hairy deal. (source)
Why then are we scared?
The media.
We haven’t had a good terrorism scare on the scale of, or even close, to 9/11 in a while. We’ve had hurricane Katrina, so now we watch every storm in the Atlantic like it’s the Next Big One, but those are too predictable. We need something we can’t control. The economy is so-so. It’s scary, but not deadly. Crime is a good one. That’s our “go-to” story. But we need something big. Something unseen, something deadly. Ah, disease! Can’t see it. Can’t predict it. Can’t control it. Yes! We have our next big scare!
We live in a culture of fear generated almost entirely by our beloved media. While crime rate goes down, reporting goes up. We love a good murder mystery, but boy does it scare us. Don’t news programs always follow up a good robbery story with how to best protect yourself from being a victim? Without coming right out and saying it, they tell you that you are in danger. Disease is even better. They don’t have a “how to protect yourself followup.” It’s the perfect excuse to scare the crap out of us, so we keep watching, gasping at the horror of it all. They use phrases like “experts warn,” or “amid growing concern,” or “a new threat.” We thrive on this stuff. I hate it.
In some sense, fear does serve a purpose. Fear can prevent a child from following a stranger or approaching a menacing dog. Fear keeps us alert for drunk drivers on the road. It can produce a healthy sense of respect for things unfamiliar. It is not, however, a tool of God, nor should it be a tool of the media to sell to the weak minds of those with little capacity for reason. We should not embrace it. Why not take precautions because it is the healthy alternative to carelessness, not because you’re scared of something. Put fear out of your mind, it will kill you!
Taking a bigger view, why does death scare us so much? I realize human death is not exactly what God intended, but really, doesn’t He have a handle on all this? The answer is, of course, yes. I am not scared.
This is a fantastic article: Forget SARS, West Nile, Ebola and avian flu. The real epidemic is fear.