Why the Ebola panic in the US? We are certified idiots, that's why!

Consider the following:

In 2010, transport accidents in the U.S. accounted for 38,000 deaths, with more than two-thirds of these fatalities occurring among men.

Not merely in 2010, but every year we could expect more than 30,000 to die from transport accidents.  Every year, we can expect more than 15,000 from homicides.

This ought to make us scared to venture out of our homes, right?  Yet, we carry on with our lives.  We drive, we go to the stores, and merrily go about as if we don't care a damn about the probability that we will die in a road accident.  Or, die from a senseless random bullet.

Ironically, we are also the same people shit scared about Ebola.  About Ebola, here in the United States!!!

James Surowiecki writes in the New Yorker that there is an even worse danger, an evil one, that awaits us this very minute: the flu virus.

No one is asking “What Scares You More: Ebola or the Flu?”

And they should be asking that because:

We know, based on past experience, that the upcoming flu season will kill thousands of Americans and send hundreds of thousands to the hospital. Yet the press seems relatively diffident about raising an alarm about this threat; its flu coverage has none of the high-pitched anxiety that suffuses writing about Ebola

Whatever happened to evidence-based reasoning and thinking skills that we should have picked up even from a basic high school education?

As a myriad of studies have shown, we tend to underestimate the risk of common perils and overestimate the risk of novel events. We fret about dying in a terrorist attack or a plane crash, but don’t spend much time worrying about dying in a car accident. We pay more attention to the danger of Ebola than to the far more relevant danger of flu, or of obesity or heart disease. It’s as if, in certain circumstances, the more frequently something kills, the less anxiety-producing we find it.

We are certified idiots with no "civic scientific literacy."  That is what I can conclude.  There is simply no other explanation.

The real problem is that irrational fears often shape public behavior and public policy. They lead us to over-invest in theatre (such as airport screenings for Ebola) and to neglect simple solutions (such as getting a flu shot).

Irrational fear leading to panic.  Sheer panic.  As Michael Specter notes:

Our response to pandemics—whether SARS, avian influenza, MERS, or Ebola—has become predictable. First, there is the panic. Then, as the pandemic ebbs, we forget. We can’t afford to do either.

We are certified idiots.

It is a shame though we are so afraid of Ebola only because it entered our territory.  As long as it was merely something that killed some people somewhere in Africa, we couldn't care less.  What a shame, what a tragedy!

Rob Carlson, the author of “Biology Is Technology,” who has written widely about genetic engineering and vaccine development, says, “We could have pushed the development of a synthetic Ebola vaccine a decade ago. We had the skills, but we chose not to pursue it. Why? Because we weren’t the people getting sick.”

Yep, we could have made tremendous advances:

Of course, we could all rest easier if there were an anti-Ebloa vaccine. That is something that could protect people far more effectively than any tightening of security at airports or along the border. Dr. Francis Collins, head of the National Institutes of Health said the NIH has been working toward that goal since 2001 and would have gotten there, if not for one thing.
“Frankly, if we had not gone through our 10-year slide in research support, we probably would have had a vaccine in time for this [outbreak] that would’ve gone through clinical trials and would have been ready,” Collins told the Huffington Post.
Why, you may ask, did the NIH not have the money to do the work that, Collins, said, “would have made all the difference?” Easy answer: Republican budget-cutting fanatics in Congress have held down funding for the NIH and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for a more than a decade.

Well, now that we are so worried that we could get sick, let us hope that at least this panic will lead us to develop an Ebola vaccine that will eliminate the virus similar to how we got rid of small pox.

Until then, do us all a favor and stop looking at your smartphone when driving.  Get yourself a flu shot.  Walk an hour every day and eat healthily.  Stop watching cable news.

More than anything else, keep calm and carry on.

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