Memories of Swine Gone By...

"And if you're not going to have a clear health threat, you don't want to panic people."

~ William Scranton

From the latest figures released thus far, 'Swine flu has claimed at least 16,173 people around the world since it was uncovered,' according to the World Health Organization. (AFP, 13 March 2010) This came less than a year after CNN reported 'thousands of flu-related deaths since January' 2009. Those were all the dreaded H1N1 as well, right? Wrong. Those deaths were your standard, run-of-the-mill influenza that makes its rounds every year.

Now, you ask, 'What's the sense in pointing that out to us?' To this, I am forced to answer, 'To add perspective.' And it's true - from everything I've seen thus far, the major global killing threat swine flu was destined to become by God Himself has yet to materialize, and there is already evidence to suggest that we're already through the second wave of contagion.

This should certainly stand as a lesson to all: history repeats. Quite out of left field on that one, aren't I? Very well, let me set the stage. It's 1976: the would-be assassin of then-President Gerald Ford is sentenced to life in prison; Palestine has been allowed to speak at a debate in the United Nations - but not vote; the world's first supersonic passenger jet, the Concorde, saw its first commercial flight; and, NBC has just introduced its new logo. That's just in January alone.

19 January also saw the first emergence of H1N1, which was predicted to take the world by storm and end all mankind as we know it, at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Vaccination programs are launched across the United States as quickly as it can be managed, one of the largest ever to date. The flu burned itself out in 21 days, having never left Fort Dix, with the vaccinations having had no effect to stem its spread - because it hadn't spread far enough.

History now knows it as the Swine Flu Fiasco, because the flu only killed 13 people. The more ominous thing about the flu was the vaccine itself, which killed 25 and caused five hundred cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome, an extremely rare (2 out of 100,000 people) medical condition which causes ascending paralysis, usually causing death when the paralysis reaches the diaphragm. That's right - it causes you to suffocate if left untreated. Nice vaccine, eh?

The point I'm making is this: just because a major outbreak of some 'dangerously infectious and highly lethal disease' is anticipated to roll through like Captain Trips (see Stephen King's 'The Stand' for this reference) doesn't mean you need to pack up on canned foods, get every inoculation medical science has to offer, and hermetically seal your apartment for the next 250,000 years. Mass panic and mob mentalities have probably killed more people than bubonic plague in the last thousand years.