Fear and loathing of the flu

As I've tried to put the finishing touches on my book proposal, I couldn't find anything to write about.

A'vast ye swine! Now there is.

To paraphrase FDR, sometimes it's the fear of the disease that's more damaging than the disease itself. The fear-of-pandemic syndrome is always a media sensation, no matter what the cost.

Here's some facts on swine flu, courtesy of Dr. Geoffrey W. Rutledge of wellsphere.com:

There is quite a buzz about the Swine Flu outbreak that has so far caused 1,995 hospitalizations and an estimated 149 deaths in Mexico, especially after the US department of Health and Human Services declared a public health emergency, and the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the swine flu outbreak had reached "phase 4", just one step away from a worldwide pandemic.

The swine flu is caused by the influenza A (subtype H1N1) virus that normally causes respiratory infections in pigs. This virus is not the same as the previously identified human form of influenza A subtype H1N1, and it is not expected that this year's influenza vaccine, which does protect against the human H1N1 flu will provide good protection against the swine flu.

So the concern is that the illnesses and deaths that occurred in Mexico could represent the beginning of a serious influenza outbreak. Of greatest concern is the possibility of a repeat of the famous influenza pandemic of 1918-19 that killed about 50 million people in the worst global epidemic in human history. That pandemic of "Spanish flu" (an avian variant of influenza A H1N1) killed more people than died during World War I, and more than died during the four years of the "Black Death" or bubonic plague, from 1347-1351. But, don’t go building an underground bunker just yet…

The data provide some hopeful news regarding this outbreak. So far, unlike the swine flu cases in Mexico, all the U.S. cases of swine flu have been less severe and have not threatened the lives of any of those affected. The second piece of hopeful news is that we are at the end of the natural influenza season, so the seasonal factors that lead to enhanced transmission of the virus are not present. It's hard to predict these events, but I'm quite hopeful that the outbreak will not turn into a major pandemic within the U.S.

Here are some resources that you may find helpful if you would like to learn about the swine flu virus and the potential for a widening outbreak of influenza in the U.S.

- A great starting point for information about swine flu is the WellPage on this topic, which lists the articles from the HealthBlogger network, and also shows valuable links in the Trusted Web Resources and News sections: http://www.wellsphere.com/wellpage/swine-flu

- HealthCentral has created a special page on the Swine flu at http://www.healthcentral.com/cold-flu/swine-flu.html

- Daily updates of progress of the outbreak are issued by the CDC at http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/

- You can find a comprehensive and understandable summary of the virus causing this illness on the World health Organization website: http://www.who.int/csr/swine_flu/swine_flu_faq.pdf
Note that in this document, the question "Where have human cases occurred" is not fully answered, because it leaves out several countries such as Mexico, Canada, England, and New Zealand, where confirmed cases have occurred.

- One thing that does help restrict the spread of the infection is treating close contacts of infected people with the right anti-viral medications (the CDC defines "close contact" as coming within 6 feet of a person with confirmed swine flu). The CDC recommendations for who should be given preventive treatment (prophylaxis) are at http://www.cdc.gov/swineflu/recommendations.htm
and the actual treatment dosages are at http://www.cdc.gov/flu/professionals/antivirals/dosagetable.htm#table

- A great resource to help understand the patterns of influenza outbreaks in the U.S., and to see where we are in the annual flu season cycle, is the Google flu trend application, at
http:// www.google.org/flutrends/. This shows that there is no evidence yet of a widening pandemic in the U.S.

Even the best media can't avoid treating mental illness like a horror show

Even The Associated Press isn't immune to promoting stigma.

Here's a story about a person who's accused of killing his therapist. Count the number of mental health stereotypes that the clever reporter and editor managed to weave into the text.

The point is: Can we find another way of describing people with mental illness without resorting to adjectives and verbs that are best reserved for a horror movie?

Here's the story (stereotypes are in bold):

A lawyer for a mental patient accused of hacking a Manhattan psychotherapist to death with a meat cleaver said Tuesday that his client will offer an insanity defense at his trial.

Defense lawyer Bryan Konoski said in Manhattan's state Supreme Court that a psychiatrist he hired to examine murder suspect David Tarloff, 40, said he has "very strong grounds" for a psychiatric defense (above photo: Tarloff).

Konoski's court papers say he will offer evidence of Tarloff's "lack of criminal responsibility by reason of mental disease or defect." They also say Tarloff suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, depression, intrusive delusional thoughts of God and Satan, belief he is the Messiah and other mental disorders.

Tarloff, who told police he has been in mental institutions at least 20 times, is charged with first- and second-degree murder in the death of Kathryn Faughey, 56, in her Upper East Side office on Feb. 12, 2008.

Tarloff is also charged with attempted murder and first-degree assault in the cleaver attack on Dr. Kent Shinbach, 70, who was hurt when he tried to help Faughey. Shinbach, whose office was near Faughey's, was Tarloff's therapist.

Konoski said "the evidence is clear that he (Tarloff) did it, but the reasons he did it, what was behind it, are so crazy that we believe we have a very strong insanity defense."

"He was having visual and auditory hallucinations, communications with God telling him how to act," Konoski said. "He believed through prayer that God had approved what he was going to do at Dr. Shinbach's office to save his mother."

The lawyer said Tarloff, who is being held in the psychiatric ward at Bellevue Hospital, was examined there by his psychiatrist for eight to 10 hours on Feb. 27 and four to five hours on March 28.

Here's the definition of mental, when it's used in the above context:

Slang - Emotionally upset; crazed: "got mental when he saw the dent in his new car."
Offensive Slang - Mentally or psychologically disturbed.

So, what's mental?

Are people who take psychotropic medicine "crazed?" Are people who go see psychotherapists or seek treatment at a facility "disturbed?"

Personally, the only thing I ever like to "hack" is any story that compares mentally ill behavior to Frankenstein.

Dude, just chill... image isn't everything

Back when he had Bon Jovi hair, Andre Agassi used to appear in Canon camera ads and make millions of television viewers cringe by telling them: "Image.... is everything."

It was one of those forgettable pop-culture slogans that you hoped would have the life span of mosquito. But, dammit, there he was, every night for what seemed like years, exposing his God-awful Jersey hair in between innings of a baseball game or in the middle of an episode of the Simpsons. "Image.... is everything," he'd say. "Image is everything." It was like some kind of twisted Bohemian chant that was as intellectually bankrupt as a Lionel Richie song.

"Aaaarrgh!" you'd scream, though not necessarily in public.

Now retired, and bald, we thought we were rid of him and his corny words forever. Gone for good, Andre. A successful tennis career, yes. But that slogan...... somewhere buried in the trash heap of 1980s pop culture history, underneath Lionel Richie, Falco and "Baby-on-Board" signs.

Alas, it's back - the slogan, that is - but only in spirit. For, in my little corner of the world, the mere mention of the word "image" has been, at times, too much to handle. I'm attending grad school at Columbia University, and my fellow New Media students are pretty stressed out because we're working on an issue called "Image."

This week, as a result, image has been everything. It has consumed us. We are reminded of it while we sleep (sleep?) and eat. We telegraph it through telephone calls and emails. We type stories that we're convinced have a connection to "image." But, perhaps, the connection is not quite there. Yet, in our heads is that Agassian chant: "Image... is everything." "Image.... is everything."

The cringe-feeling has returned. But, this time, it's not caused by shame or embarrassment. Rather, it's the creation of tension that's as thick as smog. "Aaarggh" they're saying.

I'm reminded of another 1980s icon: Jeff Spicoli, the surfer-dude from "Fast Times at Ridgemont High." To me, a guy wearing a flashy red cruise-ship shirt that's hanging wide-open - while he's sitting in a classroom with a pizza on his desk, sassing his teacher - was much cooler than a then-underachieving tennis player wearing a Miami Vice suit jacket and Ray-Ban shades.

Spicoli had a one-word solution for every problem - well, he had other solutions, too - that could prove to be useful advice for every one of us once we discover the computers that are supposed to create a new media landscape have more glitches than than rodeo clowns:

Chill.

Just chill.

The ability to chill is inside us. But it's locked up behind a wall of tension that has stunted our creativity and slowed our potential to imagine "Image."

We are a class of high-achieving, high-I.Q., high-SAT-scoring people. Virtually every one in this class has performed work that is the envy of journalism schools - and perhaps good enough to rival anything produced by the national news media. The "Image" issue is going to kick ass.

Yet, some of the work produced for the "Image" issue shows - at this point, at least - there has been a need for more imagination and confidence and less tension, pain, suffering and feelings of "Aaaargh."

Just chill.

How do you chill?

Back when I used to surf (poorly), we discovered ways of chilling. We didn't think hard. In fact, we never really ever thought hard about anything. But we discovered methods that were simple enough to follow, and effective enough to rival popular solutions produced by intense sessions of psychotherapy:

1. Work hard, yeah, but, you know, have a beer. Have two. OK, if beer's not your thing, have a glass of wine. OK, fine, make it a shot of Jack Daniels. But, please, chill.

2. Watch an episode of "House." Tape it, too, or put it on TiVo, because, with House, you've gotta be quick. Watch it a second time so you can pay close attention to every little obnoxious remark House makes. Once you process each little snide statement, you'll laugh your ass off.

3. While you're at it, watch "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." Yeah, I know. You've seen it 20 times. Get the 25th anniversary edition, however, and watch the outtakes. Before they produced this work of art, they were a mess. But they got through it because, well, there was a lot of chilling going on (at times, they accomplished this through artificial means, but that's not the point).

4. Read that earlier paragraph about "kicking ass." Read it again. Know it. Learn it. Love it.

5. Use the style guide as a rule book, yes. But use it as a guide, too. Remember that each story should have a voice - get to know these voices. Enjoy these voices. Go out for a cup of coffee with the people who produce these voices. If you chill, they'll chill. Then you'll find more voices and, from there, a theme. Then you'll feel the Zen, and you'll find your nut graph that answers the question: What is this story about?

6. If chanting is your thing, as a way of psyching yourself up, forget Andre and consider the words of another American cultural icon, Bill Murray:

"It just doesn't matter."
"It just doesn't matter."
"It just doesn't matter."