Flu Fizzle

A Christian Standpoint piece titled "H1N1 Reality Check" was posted a year ago and was written amid a panicked atmosphere as the world braced for a highly contagious and deadly new influenza strain.  In the following months vaccines were rushed into production and distributed with concerns about side effects because the last mass vaccinations sometimes caused paralysis. 

Understaffed medical facilities struggled to administer the injections.  Fairfax County, VA citizens camped outside overnight to get them, state fair officials forbid contact with pigs to protect the animals from swine flu, and the President declared the outbreak a national emergency.

All this happened after peak of the flu season in the Southern Hemisphere where the H1N1 catastrophe failed to materialize.  Many Americans apparently saw through the hype and decided not to get the vaccine.  According to a University of Pittsburgh study 75% didn't believe that they or their friends would be affected by the flu and the University of Michigan reported that only 40% of parents planned to vaccinate their kids.

They turned out to be right.  Seasonal flus typically kill about 36,000 in the U.S. and 500,000 worldwide.  The May, 2010 report of the World Health Organization confirmed "over 18,097 deaths"....globally.  A year ago you couldn't turn on a TV without getting the latest statistics and advice about H1N1's deadliness.  Now the story's been dropped and there isn't a bit of recognition that it was hyped beyond all reason.

The media tends to establish a paradigm and stick with it regardless of the facts.  Here's a theory:  Jounalists are trained in the same sort of programs by the same sort of professors regardless of where they go to school.  When they get into media jobs - without a stopover in the common sense real world - they work with the same kinds of people with the same mindsets.  They reinforce each other, develop blind eyes to their common biases and present stories with the same slants.  Over time the slanted stories are repeated so often and so confidently that they're accepted as true.  This happened with the H1N1 "crisis" even though we had enough facts a year ago to know it was less threatening than reported.

And this was an issue that didn't even have a built-in political or religious bias.

Manipulation of facts has affected Christians for decades.  Protests accusing Christians  of hateful intolerance,  every tiny development in abusive priest cases, or situations where pseudo-Christians actually do hateful things are dutifully reported because they fit the media's bias.  On the other hand, stories about missions, food pantries, clothing closets, rescue shelters, counseling and help given to the needy worldwide are seldom discussed.

When you see a story cutting down Christianity, ask yourself some questions:  "Are the facts correct?"    "Are they complete?"  "Are the people involved really Christians?"  And especially, "Does this make sense?"

You'll be surprised how often you end up shaking your head and thinking, "If the reporters and editors behaved like Christians this would have been reported a lot more honestly."


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