OMG!@!!BIRDFLU!!!1

Is anyone else tired of the culture of fear that is spread by the sensationalist media in order to sell units and make a profit? For whatever reason today, seeing yet another story on bird flu just pissed me right off.

The BBC has a good FAQ about bird flu.

Quick test: does anybody know how you get bird flu? Anyone? The answer from the article:

Humans catch the disease through close contact with live infected birds.

Birds excrete the virus in their faeces, which dry and become pulverised, and are then inhaled.

You get it by inhaling dried bird shit. The total number of worldwide deaths from bird flu so far? Ninety-three. 93 of 6,000,000,000. More people will die in car accidents or starve to death today than that (and you don't see people doing much to change that). It should also be noted that 50% of the people who contracted bird flu have survived it.

So I guess all the fear-mongering is around the suggestions that 'experts' say it could mutate into a human virus and start wiping us all out. Well, fair enough. Here is a list of some other things that COULD happen:

• a big-ass meteor could hit earth and cause hundreds of years of perpetual winter from the fallout enterting the atmosphere
• another earthquake could happen beneath the ocean causing another devastating tsunami
• Jesus could return to earth and start whisking people away

Now, I'm all for seeing problems and pre-empting them - that is, coming up with solutions before they actually become a problem. I just take issue when so much misinformation and hysteria is spread. It seems like every week there's a story that "H5N1 HAS BEEN FOUND IN A BIRD IN [REMOTE PART] OF [EUROPEAN COUNTRY]. BIRD FLU IS HERE! NEXT WEEK PEOPLE ALL AROUND THE WORLD WILL BE DROPPING DEAD! AT LEAST WE HOPE SO BECAUSE THAT WOULD SELL A LOT OF PAPERS!" I guess ultimately that's what I read between the (head)lines, and that's what frustrates me.

My heart goes out to the families of the people who have died from the illness, and I would advise workers on poultry farms in infected countries to exercise precaution, but for the rest of us, let's not start panicking until there's something the panic about, ok?