H1N1-Swine Flu is Overrated

2000 deaths a day nearly all children.

853,000 pediatric deaths a year.

this is not swine flu.

this is a disease that is completely curable.  it also doesn’t exist in the developed world.

Malaria.

lets compare shall we…

Swine flu has caused 6250 deaths since April ’09.

3,900 Americans. **

thats the kicker.

80-90% of the malaria deaths are in Africa.

so the next time you see one of those glossy articles about swine flu or five minutes spots about just how bad swine flu is..think about the value of a life.

Every three days the same number of children die as all the swine flu deaths combined.

Does the life of an American child mean more than the life of an African child?

You know the answer to that question and you also know that CNN is never going to report about in a glossy five minute media spot.  Because no one likes to know about dying children

It so much easier to forget they exist.

I too am guilty of this. For the last six months I have taken notes in lectures, carefully masked and gowned and prayed that my little patients would not end up in the ICU.

I took the h1n1 vaccine along with my other classmates three weeks ago.***  We have been chosen, our young age, our knowledge, the investment the state of NC and the federal government has made in us and our daily exposure makes us first in the line at our hospital even over residents and attendings.

Yesterday I was all in a tizzy because I woke up with a fever, body aches, cough, sore throat and my roommate is recovering from swine flu. Student Health was all in a tizzy too as they listened to my history and promptly wrote me a script a 120 dollar script (20 dollars with insurance) for tamiflu.  I am faithfully taking the drug.

Its not what I am doing is wrong. I just can’t help but wonder what kind of difference we could make in saving the lives of children if we had the backing that swine flu has.

What if for every dollar we spent on swine flu, we sent a penny to Africa for malaria cures?  How many lives would we change? save?

Does a death require less grief if no one knows it happens? Or can we be held accountable for the lives we could save and don’t?

I shudder to think of God’s justice and how much it pales our own man made justice.

Somehow I doubt he is going to buy the whole tree falls in a forest with no one to hear the sound excuse….

**(right NOW swine flu is spreading to the developing world more and more, Ukraine and Mongolia are facing huge numbers with the disease. In Mongolia the WHO fears it could overwhelm their health care system but for the last six months while all the money has been spent, all the decisions have been made its been a developed nation disease…I wonder how many vaccines are being sent to Mongolia???)

***(there is a 2-5wk window period for the vaccine to give you full immunity, my roomie got sick at the end of week 2 so I was not fully immune yet)