Don’t Panic! Don’t panic!

Reading in the Times that “Hundreds of boxes of the antiviral Tamiflu were sold last week and demand for surgical face masks rose amid fears that swine influenza will develop into a pandemic.” reminded me of LC Jones and his immortal phrase in the hilarious series Dad’s Army whilst he went about doing just what he was advising against.

What is it with a society that lives longer, healthier and more prosperous than before to give in to irrational terrors and emotional outbursts? How come it always succumbs to media led scare stories even though we’ve been led on wild and very expensive goose chases before?

I think it is one manifestation that far from living in age of reason, we have returned to an age of irrationality and superstition where so called journalists, politicians and scientists have forfeited critique, objectivity and empiricism to assume the roles of shamans and high priests. Culminating perhaps with the greatest scare of them all – “Global Warming”

How can we forget the great salmonella scare of the 80s, or the Listeria hysteria of the 90s? How can we forget the “Mad cows and Madder politicians” or the Belgian dioxins debacle? In retrospect, There’s nothing to laugh about indeed they make very depressing reading. Irrational scares come at an exceedingly high price. In many instances, as a consequence of these scares and the draconian measures imposed by political Don Quixotes who wanted to be seen to be doing something, whole businesses were wiped out, families ruined and unfortunate individuals have taken their own lives. The only thing that ever comes out of them (besides that companies who offer the ‘elixir’ literally making a killing and the media that peddles them boosts its sales) is more government regulation and a bigger state.

The Swine influenza scare is not new. In 1976 in the US there was a large fuss about it. Out of a whole congress only two voted against government intervention, one of them was Ron Paul. The result: one person died from the swine influenza and twenty five died from the administered vaccine that was supposed to immunize them. It is a sad but real fact of life that when governments intervene they usually make things worse.

I therefore appeal for people to calm down. They have more chance of being eaten by a shark or struck dead by lightning than falling foul of Swine Influenza. Whilst administering calm precaution, government should concern itself with addressing the real health hazards in our midst such as the silent but relentless spread of tuberculosis and HIV.

In the meantime, those who love to read should make an effort to procure the book “Scared to Death, Why scares are costing us the earth” by Christopher Booker and Richard North – ISBN 978-0-8264-8614-1. On second thoughts, such a brilliant expose’ of some of the most destructive delusions of our time should be made compulsory reading for everyone, particularly journalists and politicians, because if they took heed the world would suddenly become a better place.