H1N1 – State of Emergency or State of Frenzy?
By
Saturday's Beach Class!! No Swine Flu here!!
Pandemic: (of a disease) prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world; epidemic over a large area.
As many of you know, President Obama has declared a state of emergency due to the pandemic of H1N1 or swine flu in this country. According to Fox News, over 1,000 deaths have been reported in the U.S alone. Let’s talk about this as your going to be reading and seeing a lot of this in the news. 1,000 people have died from this flu in this country. Now, I can’t imagine the pain or heartache of losing a family member to the flu, especially a child. However, before we get ourselves whipped into a country-wide frenzy over this “pandemic” let’s look at a few statistics:
Number of deaths for the 10 leading causes of death in the U.S.
(www.cdc.org)
- Heart disease: 631,636
- Cancer: 559,888
- Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 137,119
- Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,583
- Accidents (unintentional injuries): 121,599
- Diabetes: 72,449
- Alzheimer’s disease: 72,432
- Influenza and Pneumonia: 56,326
- Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 45,344
- Septicemia: 34,234
- Now, that’s a lot of people dying from some very preventable diseases. No state of emergency has been declared regarding the Amercan diet, cigarette smoking, alcohol intake, or sedentary lifestyle.
- In 2008, an estimated 11,773 people died in drunk driving related crashes – per MADD (no state of emergency was declared, alcohol is still legal and readily available)
- Experts estimate that a staggering 98,000 people die from preventable medical errors each year. – www.greenchange.org (again, no state of emergency has been declared)
My goal here is not to take away from the severity of pathological disease. It exists and we should all be taking the necessary precautions to avoid it -such as washing our hands often throughout the day and increasing our intake of immune boosting foods, herbs and vitamins. However, when are we going to see Fox covering the pandemic of horrible nutrition in this country, the pandemic of cigarette smoking that leads to so much heart disease or the pandemic of drunk driving? Thoughts? Post to comments.
Today’s Workout:
“Badger Revisited”
3 Rounds for Time of:
30 Squat Cleans (#95/#65)
30 Pull ups
800 M Run
10 Comments
October 28th, 2009 at 10:36 am
Awesome post. Definitely ‘stealing’ material!
October 28th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Please omit ‘and’ from previous post, and put another space between the end of the first sentence and ‘Definitely.’ Disgusting.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:05 am
For some reason it won’t let me put another space in there Zeb, but I’ve let my Mom know that you know that there should be one!
October 28th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Follow the money. There’s money to be made fighting H1N1 (a very worthwhile expenditure of money in my opinion), so our political processes make it happen.
There’s money to be made be agribusiness in producing the products that make us sick, so our political processes make it happen.
Nobody makes money by prevention [not counting the big bucks to be made by Crossfit affiliate owners
].
We, as individuals, have to make the decision to do it for ourselves.
The (fairly cynical, but accurate) Claw
October 28th, 2009 at 11:19 am
great post traver. and great points.
October 28th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Claw nailed it. follow the money.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
Excellent point Jim. Did anybody catch The Claw on last night’s news? I’m a little disappointed he didn’t plug CPC, but I understand I guess.
October 28th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
Amen. Amen to Traver’s post and the Claw’s cynicism (truth). It is too bad, but the good things in life, like health, fitness, and awesome people are never what sells. Lets change that!
And the Claw was also mentioned on the front page article in the SB News Press today (please don’t buy the paper…don’t mind if you steal a copy though!)
October 28th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
I agree with The Claw that you have to follow the money but what I think is ignored in this and most other instances is that we fail to acknowledge our own fault in these circumstances.
I don’t really mean us as individuals but as a populace. We have lost our ability and in some cases given up the right to demand better and to question the Bullshit in situations like this.
If Fox News is that easily influenced in creating a panic where there shouldn’t be, then were is the public call for better journalism?
If there is money to be made convincing us we need something when we may really not, like a flu vaccine, then where is the call for a more honest way of conducting health care in this country?
As I see it most people are content to sit at home and be told how they should feel about the major problems looming in this country and more to the point, what problems they need to focus on. They don’t really want to be bothered with checking their facts or making a change.
Looking at this from a broader perspective then just the H1N1 virus, why is it that the most vociferous opposition, outside of government, towards proper health care reform comes from places in this country that are in the worst possible shape and would benefit the most? A former member of British Parliament once said that a population is easier to control when they are sick, uneducated and scared. Well I think that among other things this holds true here. America is locked in a downward spiral influenced by an unhealthy lifestyle, intimidation perpetuated by both sides and above all a culture of stupidity.
We need to take back what is ours, we need to be heard, we need to act. The voice of the people rules this country but for a long time now we have kept quite, sat idle and let the ones we elect have the say in how we live our lives. The Claw was right in saying our political processes allow these things to happen, they allow it to happen because we allow them to let it happen.
Things will change when we change.
Forgive me for my rant, these are just things I feel strongly about.
October 28th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Great post Baker!