When is a Pandemic Not a Pandemic?

A Canadian study published online, October 13, 2009, by the Journal of the American Medical Association indicates startling dangers for women exposed to H1N1 virus. According to Dr. Anand Kumar of St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, Manitoba, many of the Canadians who sickened and died during the first wave of the influenza, were largely young, healthy women "whose conditions deteriorated quickly."

The research was done on a relatively small number of patients; nevertheless, Dr. Kumar said the results shocked him. "It's worrisome and startling," he said. "They are in the prime of their lives, between the ages of 10 to 55 - which is distinctly unusual." Of the 168 patients studied, 17 percent died within 90 days of contracting H1N1.

Canadians are not expected to receive the vaccine until November. But that doesn't seem to matter much to the vocal commentators on various news websites. These armchair medical "authorities" are cut from the same conspiracy cloth that spawns popular revisionism such as the US government brought down the Twin Towers and the Holocaust never happened. They also think Elvis is alive, no man ever landed on the moon, and Darwin's Theory of Evolution is a joke.

Meanwhile, in the US, where the vaccine is now available, a recent survey done by the Harvard School of Public Health indicates that only 40 per cent of adults say they are absolutely certain they will get the H1N1 vaccine, while 41 per cent say they won't.

The skepticism is fueled by internet rumours that hint at everything from government plots and drug company grabs, to specious arguments about the vaccines' thimerosal and mercury causing autism and poisoning in children and fetuses. The fact that both ingredients are not currently in the latest one dose vaccines falls on deaf ears, as does the insistence that thimerosal is safe, regardless.

Similar arguments exist in Canada, along with the claim that H1N1 is nothing more than a media scare tactic.

I plan to get vaccinated. Maybe because I fall into a high-risk category, or maybe because I am aware of the devastation of polio and thankful for Jonas Salk.

What I can't understand is how so many people have willingly become dead from the neck up. Rampant ignorant chatter on Web sites and dumb-cluck Twittering travels faster than a speeding pandemic.

If stupidity about H1N1 wins over good old-fashioned common sense, global populations will be threatened by the needless spread of H1N1 unless governments enforce inoculations. Let's hope it doesn't come to that.