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Message: <blockquote data-quote="wingsandsword" data-source="post: 2733306" data-attributes="member: 14159">Yes, the media loves hype and fear, it gets ratings and sells newspapers.  The documentaries you see on TV are made for entertainment and to get ratings, so of course they are going to present it as a deadly threat, to keep you watching.  The news wants you tuning in every night to see what the latest Superflu threat is.  SARS, the disease that was hyped to be the feared Superflu that would wipe out mankind and be an apocalypitc nightmare, only killed 775 people, and infected only 8069.  A mortality rate of 9.6% is quite bad, but not the end of the world, especially when it was contained as well as SARS was.Remember the fear about Anthrax four years ago, and people hoarding Ciprofloxacin?  Remember the fear-laced news reports saying how weaponized anthrax could wipe out almost all life in the nation?  Remember the sensatonalistic fictional movies-of-the-week like the one on FX about a bioweapon pandemic wit the tagline "It's a true story, it just hasn't happened yet".  I knew it was ridiculous when I started seeing pop-up ads and getting spam offering to sell Ciprofloxacin.  I'm not afraid of avian flu any more than I am anthrax or SARS.  Yes, it could kill me, it could be dangerous, but living in fear is no life, and watching for the latest chicken in another country to get the sniffles will get me nowhere, for now I am preparing against the remote possibility of any disease outbreak by staying healthy, eating well, exercising, keeping clean and being mindful of disease vectors, but I already was like that before the "bird flu plague" hype, so I'm not really changing anything.</blockquote>

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