Approximately a year ago, our national news media and international news media committed an act of medical terrorism with mad cow disease.  Entire herds of cattle in England were slaughtered and McDonald’s hamburger sales on the continent in Europe dropped 10% or more based on our news media creating a panic that mad cow disease was going to infect humans.  To my knowledge to this time, there is not even one case of mad cow disease affecting humans.

    If you were to ask the people who create the panic, they would say that they are only doing a public service and the reason that there was no mad cow disease epidemic was that they had instituted preventive measures in time.   I am reminded of the man who got on the bus every day, bought a newspaper, tore it up in little pieces and threw it out the window.  After a companion rider had witnessed this for several months, this rider’s curiosity overcame him and he asked the man why he tore up the  paper each day and threw it out the window.  The man replied that it was to keep the wild elephants off the streets.  This very puzzled observant then commented that there weren’t any wild elephants for 10,000 miles.  The paper-tearer then commented that, “It’s doing a good job, isn’t it?”  This same thinking seems to apply to our national media and the repeated acts of medical terrorism.

     And now comes West Nile Virus.  On Friday evening, August 23, I happened to watch the 10:00 pm, TV newscast.  The first five minutes of the broadcast was devoted to West Nile Virus and the fact that one case had been detected in Hoven, SD.  The reported case had since recovered completely.  Comments were made that another person was recovering from a much more serious problem with the virus in Avera McKennan Hospital.

     What is the point of such broadcast?  West Nile Virus is a disease well known for many years, spread by mosquitoes.  There is no medical treatment known.  Prevention comes from avoiding mosquito bites which most people do anyway.  So why devote so much time on a news program to an inconsequential situation that has no remedial action if detected.  This isn’t medical information.  This is medical terrorism.

     Fortunately and much to the credit of the people of central South Dakota, I haven’t had  even one telephone call or one patient come in inquiring about West Nile Virus.  This by itself is almost scary.  What is to happen when our newspapers quit crying wolf and really have a problem that we do need to work on.  After mad cow disease and West Nile Virus and heaven only knows what other scams they will publish, when the real problem comes along, our responses will be slow and less adequate.

     To its credit, in the Friday, August 23 issue of the Aberdeen American News was a cartoon documenting the injuries and fatalities that come from activities a driver might get involved in while driving their car.  It was pointed out that in the state of California, there were 423 reported injuries and 3 fatalities related to the use of cell phones while driving a car.  There were 290 injuries and 6 fatalities while the driver was manipulating their radio or CD player and 104 injuries and 3 fatalities related to eating while driving. I don’t have a shred of belief that we are going to get our citizenry to stop using their cell phones, their radios or eating while driving their automobile.  But perhaps some warning or  attention to the danger of these activities might make drivers more conscious of the danger they  are in, while carrying on these activities.  In this particular situation, there is something that the driver can do to prevent the problem.

            To the discredit of all the news media, I looked in several  papers and found not one article directed to the dangers of smoking cigarettes.  And yet, if a person smokes cigarettes there is a 50-50 chance that smoking cigarettes will kill them.  The  statistics are easy.  At this time, less than one-third of our population smokes cigarettes and yet  300,000 of the 2 million deaths per year that occur in the United States are the result of smoking  cigarettes.  One-sixth of all the deaths in the United States are related to smoking cigarettes and  the occur predominantly in the people who smoke them.  So a sixth of deaths occur in a one-third of the population that smoke.  In other words, if one divides a third by a sixth, there is a 50-50 chance that smoking cigarettes is what will kill that person.  Now here is something someone can do something about and yet our news media made no comment about it at the same time, that five minutes of a news program was devoted to terrorizing the public about West Nile Virus.

Surely, our national news media could do a better job of serving the general public than this.