Pale Horse, Pale Comparison

If you’re like me, you need a little epidemiology mixed in with your politics. It’s quite natural.

We all can’t seem to stop obsessing over the coming pandemic of H1N1 influenza A. Government officials are reminding us to wash our hands. Conspiracy theorists are whispering about Al Qaeda and Mexican drug cartels. Stores are selling out of surgical masks. The Vice-President is warning us off the subway. Schools are closing. “Purell Moms” are furiously disinfecting everything in sight. Leading scientists are warning that this flu is likely to be less deadly than the average yearly winter flu. Wait, what?

In this country, typical strains of the flu kill about 36,000 people a year. That’s less than one percent of the people who contract it. Based on observed rates of spread so far, this new virus is likely to account for only a tiny percentage of the total flu cases in the US this year and it seems to have a lower mortality rate than your average flu. Initial comparisons to the chemical makeup of the Spanish flu that killed upwards of 50 million people worldwide in 1918 have proved superficial.  The traits that turned that flu into an epic plague are absent in this new version of the virus according to the folks who are busily analyzing the genetic components of swine flu. To adapt a phrase from Paul Hogan, “That’s not a flu outbreak. That’s a flu outbreak.”

This raises a question. Why all the hullabaloo? Don’t we get rather banal stories in the media every year about whether the flu shot is going to work this season and what new mutations are being identified? Do we ever, EVER freak out like this? No. Now, granted, influenza likes to mutate and what is starting out as a below average virus could become a killer by autumn, but who is going to predict what kind of mutations will take place? I’d sooner trust that geologist in California who warns of earthquakes every time there’s a new moon than anyone claiming to know how the flu bug is going to change.

Again I ask, why is this such a big deal? Call me crazy, but I’m beginning to wonder if the end game to this media blitz is going to be an attempt to legislate against the flu. I fully expect to read stories about how there isn’t enough Tamiflu and the uninsured are dying in the streets and it’s all because there aren’t enough laws regulating healthcare and the pharmaceutical industry. Never let a good pandemic go to waste. Just like earthquake-man, I’d sooner trust a priest to pray the gay away than a congressman to keep us all germ free. Have you all noticed the inordinate number of dire warnings and predictions of catastrophes of various kinds we’ve been hearing lately? I bet you have.

And what is the one common thread behind every calamity that has threatened to befall us since, oh, about last September? You guessed it, the immediate need for overwhelming government intervention. Believe me, I feel awkward turning a story about a spreading illness into what amounts to a screed against big government, but I can’t avoid making the connection. I’d feel like the proverbial ostrich if I tried to pretend I don’t notice the coincidence. So, what sort of action can we expect our elected officials to take to combat this menace? Will they enact tort reform to encourage doctors to quit fleeing the profession so more people have access to qualified medical examinations? I kind of doubt it. Will they incentivize universities to reign in the cost of medical school to encourage more bright kids to become doctors? Not bloody likely.

The solutions we’ll see proposed will all be geared toward an increased federal role in every aspect of medical care. Single-payer might still be a ways off, but everything Washington does to combat the current crisis will move the country in that direction. One small step at a time until the last step before rationing doesn’t seem like a leap. Let me be clear about something. I don’t mind the extra attention paid to an emerging health threat when that attention is focused on ensuring adequate preparation and disseminating accurate information. That’s just common sense. You can’t get the flu from eating pork. Maybe not everyone realizes that, so HHS ought to get the word out. I just object to the fevered pitch and the exaggerated tone of these last few days. It’s over the top and smells of social engineering.

Twenty years from now there won’t be any great literature written with the flu epidemic of 2009 as the backdrop. Katherine Anne Porter had a real pandemic to base her classic short novel on. If you haven’t read it, a man so loves a woman that he stays by her bed and nurses her through the Spanish flu. She recovers but he gets the flu from her and dies. Very dramatic. The only creative use for 2009 will be as the setting for a book about how gullible we were.

A Los Angeles Times reporter grabbed a gem of a quote from a molecular virologist on Thursday regarding the sudden emergence of this new terror. “You don’t ever find anything that you don’t look for. Now that diagnostic laboratories and physicians and other healthcare workers know to look for it, perhaps it’s not surprising that you’re going to see additional cases identified.”

Well if that doesn’t sum it right up.