Catch my disease. How come you didn’t?
October 3rd 2006 06:35
"Catch My Disease". Nice little song that, Ben Lee, thanks and very catchy if you ignore the pun.
How come we're still alive? We shouldn’t be, you know. We should be dead long ago from some infectious malady. So what’s happened or rather what hasn’t happened? The diseases that threaten mankind are much more serious than the “luv” disease. But are they?
It should be thought more than a little suspicious that you haven’t keeled over yet with one of them, Bird Flu’, Anthrax, Spanish Flu, SARS, Mad Cow Disease, Aids. The list goes on and on. Not too long ago we were all doomed from the last remaining samples of small pox that the laboratories of the world had stored away. Every year for the last twenty we are presented with the spectrum of some white-coated huckster academic spending his fifteen minutes of fame predicting our imminent demise. And, having frightened us to death, suggesting that more and more funds be poured into either his personal research project or gathering more and more of people like him and his colleagues for another feed fest at the New York Hilton.
You recall images of Chinese, Japanese and Singaporean people boarding planes or even wandering the streets with white, facemasks on. If you travel around there is still a lot of this. One has the sense of holding back a tide of disease and contagion behind a bamboo wall which may, at any moment, swing across on illegal boat loads of people or even legal plane loads of people and spill into our nice, clean, sterile hospitals.
You will recall tons of cow carcasses burning in ovens in Europe and hundreds of birds on bon fires in Turkey while rather scruffy Turkish police arrested little boys for concealing a pet chook or two, throwing them in to jail to endure the usual Turkish interrogation methods to get them to give up their stash of pigeons.
Where is this avalanche of filth now and why are we not staggering around coughing up blood on the subway?
Could it all be a con? Surely not. Is it possible that those must trusted doctors and academics in whose hands we place our lives every day are telling porkies? Worse than this are those paragons of verity, the journalists of the world, going along with this for their own reasons? What could those reasons be? The days when any journalist looked at a story to assess its truth-value as opposed to its ability to shock or disgust are long past. Doctors, ever keen to promote their own projects and feather their own research nests are more than willing participants in this science fraud. We too are participants and conspirators, especially in the Western World, where a certain amount of selfish xenophobia comes in handy as we rack up the barbwire on the boarders.
The truth is we are not going to die in huge numbers from these diseases. People in poorer countries are dying but not because these diseases spread like wildfire. It’s because they lack the basic necessities of life, water, the disposal or waste, vaccines and even health workers to remove bodies, burn animals and quarantine things.
The maxim remains, “It’s not, don’t believe everything you hear, it’s don’t believe anything you hear.” Check it out.
How come we're still alive? We shouldn’t be, you know. We should be dead long ago from some infectious malady. So what’s happened or rather what hasn’t happened? The diseases that threaten mankind are much more serious than the “luv” disease. But are they?
Mad Bird's Disease
It should be thought more than a little suspicious that you haven’t keeled over yet with one of them, Bird Flu’, Anthrax, Spanish Flu, SARS, Mad Cow Disease, Aids. The list goes on and on. Not too long ago we were all doomed from the last remaining samples of small pox that the laboratories of the world had stored away. Every year for the last twenty we are presented with the spectrum of some white-coated huckster academic spending his fifteen minutes of fame predicting our imminent demise. And, having frightened us to death, suggesting that more and more funds be poured into either his personal research project or gathering more and more of people like him and his colleagues for another feed fest at the New York Hilton.
SARS Kids
Daddy, He's got my bird
You will recall tons of cow carcasses burning in ovens in Europe and hundreds of birds on bon fires in Turkey while rather scruffy Turkish police arrested little boys for concealing a pet chook or two, throwing them in to jail to endure the usual Turkish interrogation methods to get them to give up their stash of pigeons.
Where is this avalanche of filth now and why are we not staggering around coughing up blood on the subway?
Pulling neck and legs
Could it all be a con? Surely not. Is it possible that those must trusted doctors and academics in whose hands we place our lives every day are telling porkies? Worse than this are those paragons of verity, the journalists of the world, going along with this for their own reasons? What could those reasons be? The days when any journalist looked at a story to assess its truth-value as opposed to its ability to shock or disgust are long past. Doctors, ever keen to promote their own projects and feather their own research nests are more than willing participants in this science fraud. We too are participants and conspirators, especially in the Western World, where a certain amount of selfish xenophobia comes in handy as we rack up the barbwire on the boarders.
The truth is we are not going to die in huge numbers from these diseases. People in poorer countries are dying but not because these diseases spread like wildfire. It’s because they lack the basic necessities of life, water, the disposal or waste, vaccines and even health workers to remove bodies, burn animals and quarantine things.
The maxim remains, “It’s not, don’t believe everything you hear, it’s don’t believe anything you hear.” Check it out.
| 17 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
