Not This Again.

Now that we are a month into summer its time for the media to bombard us with reports of West Nile Virus. Honestly if you still buy into this crap you deserve to be exiled on Three Mile Island.

West Nile Virus is one of a slew of diseases and pandemic that are supposedly threatening man kind. The following are a list of disasters that were supposed to wipe out humanity in the last several years.
-West Nile Virus. Comes up every summer with alerts in nearly every county of the United States as well as around the world and is a main fixture of the news until September.

Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

Number of deaths attributed: 2003-World- N/A U.S. -264

-SARS. That hilarious disease that had everyone in Asia wearing surgical masks, it even caused the Womens World Cup to be moved from China to the U.S.

Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

Number of deaths attributed: Asia-182 World-0 U.S.-0

-Prairie Dog Virus. This disease was so obscure and absurd that you don't even remember it. It was a main fixture on the news for a month in the summer of 2004.

Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

Number of deaths attributed: World-0 U.S.-0

-Bird Flu. This is the biggest of the "epidemics" facing the world, causing the destruction of the poultry industry in many third world countries. We still haven't heard the end of this one.

Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

Number of deaths attributed: Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia-128 World-0 U.S.- 0

-Mad Cow Disease. You almost forgot about this one didn't you, how could you forget those news reports showing cows banging their head against brick walls and Moo'ing incessantly. Those would usually have me on the floor laughing for a good 25 mins.

Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

Number of deaths attributed: World-0 U.S.- 0 If you look up Mad Cow Disease what you will find is hundreds of articles from U.S. and British newspapers with titles such as, "Mad Cow Disease MIGHT kill in U.S. new study shows", "Mad Cow possibly detected in Canada".

-Ebola Virus. Even though you heard about this for the whole year of 1995 and never again, Ebola is apparently still killing people.

Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

Number of deaths attributed: Zaire 2003-128, World-0, U.S.-0

Among these diseases there were also several warnings around the time of 9/11 concerning old and formerly subdued diseases coming back. Those include...

-Small Pox
Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

-Cow Pox
Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.
-Typhoid
Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

and yes of course

-Bubonic Plague
Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

So in addition to these pandemics which one is the biggest killer?

-Influenza The flu. You know that annoying fever, cough and muscle stiffness you get every year?
Symptoms: high fever, dry cough, headache, muscular stiffness and loss of appetite.

Number of deaths attributed: 1.5 million per year world wide, estimates up to 150,000 in the U.S. each year.

The most crucial thing to gather from all this is that these disease will continue to appear in other countries, the majority will never kill a single U.S. citizen despite the warnings every night on the news. Do these diseases really exist? Maybe, but should we really fear them, I don't think so. No more than I feared Y2K, asteroids from outer space, the predictions of Nostradamus or the apocalypse. If you value your sanity you wont pay attention to any of these reports on the news, but I would recommend getting your Flu shots!