Eshin Direct

This is old news but I missed it. Apparently, there is a fat virus (AD36) that’s apparently responsible for making people fat. One hypothesis is that it originated in India but the US seems to be hit the hardest by the epidemic, and there is evidence that it is around in the UK.

I’m curious. Why aren’t the media all over this? Perhaps we should all start wearing masks again, avoiding travel to infected hotspots like the US, UK and India? Fat doesn’t kill like SARS? When the possible global death toll for SARS was around 106 and the possible death toll in the US for weight-related issues accounts for 280,000 death a year, I wonder why there was such media hype with SARS?

I suppose it’s nice and trendy to flog the Beijing government and the various Hong Kong health officials for the failure to respond to the apparent “gravity” of the threat of SARS. It all makes it so much easier when bitching about things goes hand-in-hand with democracy and blame can be shifted to elected or not-so-elected officials.

I think the whole SARS fiasco demonstrated that the manipulation of the public by constructed perceptions through the media is a very real threat.

Public accountability is an intrinsic part of democracy yet this has often been coupled with the need for a free and independent press to provide that transparency. For many, the press has often been their substitute to actually thinking and exercising their right to responsibly hold their leaders to account. But what happens when the press should be called to account, as in the case of the SARS paranoia that they generated?

Who will answer questions such as why SARS was such a headline grabber? Questions that should probe further than just the public’s apparent “right to know”. Some one in the major media corporations should be held accountable. Whether it be the lowly journalist who hoped that his or her extensive coverage of the “epidemic” would be their big break to the board room where perhaps ulterior politic motives may have been in play.

If SARS wasn’t the worst thing to hit the human population, then why was it made out to be? And then, if so, why aren’t they media whipping up the hysteria about the legion of other virus and diseases that threaten to topple civilisation? Either way, they are doing something wrong. Some might say that people do the voting with their cash when they buy the media. Sure, they do. But more immediate action should be done to take media owners to task. After all, if voting through economics was a valid democratic tool, then why don’t we just elect the politicans we want into power by how much money we’ve paid them.

Oh wait, America already does.

Tags: Political Rants