Commentaries

Look behind the curtain of pandemic rhetoric
 December 14, 2005

 Fear is a wonderful thing for a party in power that is in trouble. [Flu pandemic could kill 30,000 in Minnesota] Send forth the messengers. Incite the people to buy bottled water, stockpile food (and ammunition), buy "protective" masks, gloves, clothing. Make them fear for their personal safety and that of their families and they will forget all else.

While it is true that a pandemic in our country could kill millions, and we should all make some preparations for that possibility, the Avian Flu - even by the CDC's own account - is still a few quantum biological leaps from becoming an airborne human pathogen. We should devote as much preparation for a pathogen cause as we do to a prepping for a bio-nuclear attack by terrorists - the latter may be just as likely.

It is not clear if or when a pandemic may happen in our country or our state - it could happen next month; it could happen in 2040. What is very clear is that if you distract the electorate from the current morass our country is in vis-a-vis the war in Iraq, the struggling economy (ask any hourly laborer if the economy is "robust") and any number of elected officials and their associates being indicted, they tend to become numb to the failings of government. Fear is the perfect anesthetic. Preaching pandemics is the antidote for people who are beginning to question the decisions of their President and Congress.

That is what lies just below the surface of the pandemic rhetoric.



D. Swanson
Burnsville, MN
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