I was reading an article on Tuesday where Dr. Gupta gives advice to parents regarding the media's coverage of a swine flu outbreak. The media has taken this idea of massive pandemic and blew it out of proportion, especially toward the end of last years flu season. Gupta says, "People were scared, more than I had seen in a long time. And, health care professionals were blaming the media -- accusing them of being alarmist". This is true, the media was giving swine flu a lot of air time, describing the symptoms and claiming that as many as 50% of our population will contract swine flu. Some outlets going as far as to call this the next major pandemic.
Dr. Gupta, in response to all the hype, decided to observe an pediatric emergency room, because children are particularly susceptible. According to Gupta, ER attendance is up almost 2-3x more than normal. My mother, who is the Director of Infection Control at Piedmont Hospital agrees. She has seen ER attendance that is considerably higher than before and the majority of patients are there complaining of flu like symptoms, and claim they have swine flu.
The media loves to comment on the death tolls, symptoms, and projected outcomes of this flu. However, they concentrate on the bad cases ones that involve those with weakened immune systems, like the elderly and infants. Instead of educating, I feel the media has crossed the line, they would much ignite fear in the hearts of the public.
Gupta had some advice for those about swine flu which I found interesting and very true. Basically Swine Flu is the flu, and can be solved by taking a few days to sleep and drink plenty of fluids. If you think you may have Swine flu, call a doctor, don't go to the ER unless, you can't breathe, your fever lasts for longer than 3 days, you can't urinate, or you are sick enough that you would normally go to the ER. Gupta debunked one more myth, "Yes, hearing between 30,000 and 90,000 could die from H1N1 is scary, but keep in mind -- around 40,000 people die from the regular or seasonal flu every year. The numbers may not be that much different, yet there is not panic about the regular flu. As things look now, H1N1 is causing only mild to moderate illness, not the widespread deaths people are worried about".
I am more than pleased with this form of journalism, it is informative yet it does not strike fear in the hearts of millions. This is what good media is all about.
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I totally agree with you on the fact that good media should be informative and should not intend to create panic among the public in order to increase their ratings. I think that the media has definitely viewed the H1N1 virus as a huge money maker and has used every statistic they could find in order to create panic among everyone. I like how Dr. Gupta sort of "debunked" the media myths, stating they while H1N1 is not something to just "brush away", it is definitely not a as the media portrays it, which is as being a huge pandemic sweeping the U.S. Today's media has become so sensationalized and no one really knows whether or not they are getting the whole truth or even a little of the truth. I believe you are right when you say that "the media loves to comment on the death tolls, symptoms, and projected outcomes of this flu". The goal of the media today has changed from being a source of information for the general public to trying to increase their ratings any way they can.
ReplyDeleteI think what you've said here is very interesting. I think the media have figured out how to manipulate the public into panicking whenever they want us to panic. Using the swine flu, which is new to the American public, the media has been able to hype up as much as possible and exaggerate the illnes. I agree with you. We need people like Dr. Gupta in the news to help put htingsi n persepective and add to our more well rounded knowledge of what's going on the world.
ReplyDeleteyour blog is very educating. I am very suspicious of the swine flu vaccination because of potential side effects. I also agree that the swine flu outbreak has been blown out of proportion.
ReplyDeleteIronically enough, I actually contracted swine flu this weekend, and I survived. Hooray!
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that the media has taken this swine flu thing and blew it completely out of proportion. The media loves to exaggerate things these days. Not that I am dismissing it and just not saying it an important issue. But they have been going overboard, and even though we try really hard to not be affected by it, we still are. Like when you had it a couple weeks ago, you described how it was and you came back and you were fine. That is a perfect illustration of what most cases have been like. its been unusual for the deaths that have occured. But the media like to take the unusual and crazy and make it the norm and freak us out about it. Its really quite sad. If we can't turn to media who can we turn to?
ReplyDeleteI agree that the media is blowing the Swine Flu out of proportion. The media will always talk about the bad. Your blog was educational because I have not read up on it.
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