While I plan my upcoming trip to Thailand, every person I encounter asks if I am worried about the mysterious Asian flu. I have seen the pictures on the news of Asian mothers holding their children while wearing "TB masks."
These photos have not had an adverse effect on me, however, since I know that in Southeast Asia, many citizens wear such masks - especially in winter. But now this image is used to evoke our fears, and it has largely succeeded.
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome now has the attention of the American people, including the president, who passed an order allowing health officials to detain and quarantine those with this illness.
I suppose I can see why it is so frightening - it has killed almost a hundred people in the last year, with Americans sustaining a whopping zero of these fatalities. In case anyone has failed to notice, we are not a country without the means to treat a simple flu.
Look at the facts to date: out of the 115 Americans infected so far, 109 recently traveled to an infected Asian country. This means that the thousands of other people swarming into emergency rooms - pushing the truly sick aside for fear of catching the dreaded SARS just because one of their neighbors is Asian - are simply reacting to the fear spawned by governments and cultivated by our media.
Scores of hyperlinks litter the front of every news page, telling people how to avoid contracting the disease, suggesting what to do if they might have it, and offering a long list of ambiguous symptoms that could mean anything from the common cold to bubonic plague.
More have died from your everyday influenza than from SARS, but with regular flu lacking drama, no one cares. So people are running scared, turning quickly to our friend the pharmacist. After all, look at how we reacted to Anthrax: Cipro became a hotter narcotic than Ecstacy.
What cannot be overlooked is that 100,000 people die every year in the United States from misuse of medications, as we use them to cure our worries more than any actual disease. Take a pill and all of your fears about death and disease will be dissolved.
This is not just an American phenomenon, either. China loses 192,000 people annually to such misuse, and with SARS spreading in their back yard, the Chinese are sure to react with increased apprehension.
The most disturbing pieces of news on SARS are those that tell you what to do if you might be infected with it: Run to the store while holding your breath, buy a mask and some gloves, then lock yourself in the house and watch Fox News all day. Don't forget to cover your windows with plastic sheeting so as not to infect your whole community.
Sure, I'm glad that we have organizations trying to contain the spread of this disease, but not because I believe its 3.5 percent mortality rate is any worse than the plethora of other diseases. Rather, I hope it keeps those people who are glued to their televisions from racing to the pharmacy and overdosing on antibiotics. This fear-producing coverage becomes like a burning building, where more people die from others trampling them than from the fire itself.
So unless you have traveled to an Asian country lately, feel free to bypass all of the feckless coverage on the highly non-lethal SARS, 'cause fear only fuels the fire.
Darren Todd is an English literature senior. Reach him at lawrence.todd@asu.edu.
