Disease and fear
11/12/14 05:29
For some reason the topic of the plague was brought up during a meeting of our youth group last night. I guess it is a factor in some video game that is popular with some of our teens. The young people didn’t have a very accurate idea of how devastating the disease had once been. During the 14th century, the plague killed over 25 million people. Estimates were that as many as 30 - 60% of the population of Europe died from the disease. It became known as the Black Death. The economic impact of so many deaths was significant. Labor became so scarce that it drove up wages. It took a long time before people discovered that fleas and small rodents were the leading carriers of the plague. About two thirds of infected persons die within four days.
Different diseases strike fear into different generations of people. For many generations Tuberculosis was a deeply feared disease. Get too close to a person who is laughing and you had a chance of contacting the disease. The disease could remain latent for a long time and then flair up into a deadly disease with only about a 50% survival rate. Before the skin test and vaccine were developed, victims of the disease were isolated from the general population. At one time it was speculated that as much as one third of the population of the world had the latent form of the disease. Even now, with an effective vaccine available, about 1% of the world’s population gets the disease each year. As many as 1.5 million people die each year from the disease, which may be spreading more quickly because of poor immune systems, largely due to high rates of HIV infection.
I was born just in time for an effective polio vaccine, which eliminated a lot of the worry that was associated with those just a few years older than I. Muscle weakness and paralysis, permanent disability and death from the disease was the cause of a great deal of fear among the general population worldwide. Like tuberculosis, a person could be infected with polio and show no symptoms, spreading the disease without knowing that it was present.
It isn’t difficult to remember the dark days of the spread of the AIDS virus before it was understood and effective treatment was available. In those days a diagnosis was as good as a death sentence. Sexually transmitted diseases carry a social stigma that can inhibit effective diagnosis and treatment. The battery of private sexual questions that we are asked each time we donate blood are part of the effort to prevent the spread of the disease. Though blood is now tested for safety before it is distributed, there are many documented cases of the disease being spread through contaminated blood products.
The World Health Organization has declared an international public health emergency in the face of the major outbreak of the ebola virus in West Africa. It is serious. There still aren’t enough resources in the areas most affected to stem the growth of the outbreak. More than 200 health care workers have died from the disease, partly due to the lack of proper equipment to prevent the spread of the disease. A handful of people haver traveled outside of Africa with the disease and a few have died as a result of the disease. So far there is no outbreak of the epidemic in the United States.
But there is no small amount of fear about the disease. Hospitals and clinics are swamped with phone calls of panicked people who think they may have the disease. I’ve spoken with people who are genuinely afraid that the disease will become a major epidemic in the United States.
Fear and actual threat seldom line up.
Ebola is not now a significant threat in our country. Heart Disease is epidemic. Cancer is epidemic, though death rates from most forms of cancer continue to fall. Diabetes is epidemic. Alzheimers is approaching epidemic proportions and increasing.
Americans die in vehicle accidents and by suicide in huge numbers.
Worldwide, tetanus, cholera, measles and diarrhea claim lives at alarming rates. According to the World Health Organization, malnutrition is named as the biggest contributor to child mortality.
If you want to get scared of a disease, read the statistics about drug resistant infections. If you project the current trend lines, we could lose as many as 10 million people per year by 2050 - more than currently die from cancer. Drug resistant infections are implicated in 700,00 deaths per year right now, with Asia and Africa being the places with the most dramatic growth in the spread of such infections.
If one wants to be afraid, there are plenty of diseases to fear.
Living in fear, however, rarely is a way to discover solutions to problems. There are diseases that we can treat. There are diseases that can be prevented. There is research that can reduce the devastation of diseases. Responding with carefully-studied action is far more effective than giving way to irrational fear.
Every human being will one day die. It is a simple fact. And some will die of preventable or treatable disease and others will die of other causes. It reminds me of the story of the raising of Lazarus reported in the Gospel of John. It is reported that Lazarus is ill, but Jesus delays going to him. By the time he arrives, Lazarus is dead and buried. Jesus orders the tomb to be unsealed despite the protests that it will cause a stench. He calls to Lazarus and Lazarus comes forth - a miracle and a sign of God’s glory.
But Lazarus didn’t become immortal. We assume that he had to go through the process of dying again at a later date.
So I try to keep informed about the diseases that are in this world. I try to be reasonable and do what I am able to prevent the spread of infection and disease. But I do not allow fear to dominate my life.
At last check, I am ebola free and it appears I will remain so for some time to come. In the meantime, I’ll keep using my seat belt and be careful about washing my hands.
Different diseases strike fear into different generations of people. For many generations Tuberculosis was a deeply feared disease. Get too close to a person who is laughing and you had a chance of contacting the disease. The disease could remain latent for a long time and then flair up into a deadly disease with only about a 50% survival rate. Before the skin test and vaccine were developed, victims of the disease were isolated from the general population. At one time it was speculated that as much as one third of the population of the world had the latent form of the disease. Even now, with an effective vaccine available, about 1% of the world’s population gets the disease each year. As many as 1.5 million people die each year from the disease, which may be spreading more quickly because of poor immune systems, largely due to high rates of HIV infection.
I was born just in time for an effective polio vaccine, which eliminated a lot of the worry that was associated with those just a few years older than I. Muscle weakness and paralysis, permanent disability and death from the disease was the cause of a great deal of fear among the general population worldwide. Like tuberculosis, a person could be infected with polio and show no symptoms, spreading the disease without knowing that it was present.
It isn’t difficult to remember the dark days of the spread of the AIDS virus before it was understood and effective treatment was available. In those days a diagnosis was as good as a death sentence. Sexually transmitted diseases carry a social stigma that can inhibit effective diagnosis and treatment. The battery of private sexual questions that we are asked each time we donate blood are part of the effort to prevent the spread of the disease. Though blood is now tested for safety before it is distributed, there are many documented cases of the disease being spread through contaminated blood products.
The World Health Organization has declared an international public health emergency in the face of the major outbreak of the ebola virus in West Africa. It is serious. There still aren’t enough resources in the areas most affected to stem the growth of the outbreak. More than 200 health care workers have died from the disease, partly due to the lack of proper equipment to prevent the spread of the disease. A handful of people haver traveled outside of Africa with the disease and a few have died as a result of the disease. So far there is no outbreak of the epidemic in the United States.
But there is no small amount of fear about the disease. Hospitals and clinics are swamped with phone calls of panicked people who think they may have the disease. I’ve spoken with people who are genuinely afraid that the disease will become a major epidemic in the United States.
Fear and actual threat seldom line up.
Ebola is not now a significant threat in our country. Heart Disease is epidemic. Cancer is epidemic, though death rates from most forms of cancer continue to fall. Diabetes is epidemic. Alzheimers is approaching epidemic proportions and increasing.
Americans die in vehicle accidents and by suicide in huge numbers.
Worldwide, tetanus, cholera, measles and diarrhea claim lives at alarming rates. According to the World Health Organization, malnutrition is named as the biggest contributor to child mortality.
If you want to get scared of a disease, read the statistics about drug resistant infections. If you project the current trend lines, we could lose as many as 10 million people per year by 2050 - more than currently die from cancer. Drug resistant infections are implicated in 700,00 deaths per year right now, with Asia and Africa being the places with the most dramatic growth in the spread of such infections.
If one wants to be afraid, there are plenty of diseases to fear.
Living in fear, however, rarely is a way to discover solutions to problems. There are diseases that we can treat. There are diseases that can be prevented. There is research that can reduce the devastation of diseases. Responding with carefully-studied action is far more effective than giving way to irrational fear.
Every human being will one day die. It is a simple fact. And some will die of preventable or treatable disease and others will die of other causes. It reminds me of the story of the raising of Lazarus reported in the Gospel of John. It is reported that Lazarus is ill, but Jesus delays going to him. By the time he arrives, Lazarus is dead and buried. Jesus orders the tomb to be unsealed despite the protests that it will cause a stench. He calls to Lazarus and Lazarus comes forth - a miracle and a sign of God’s glory.
But Lazarus didn’t become immortal. We assume that he had to go through the process of dying again at a later date.
So I try to keep informed about the diseases that are in this world. I try to be reasonable and do what I am able to prevent the spread of infection and disease. But I do not allow fear to dominate my life.
At last check, I am ebola free and it appears I will remain so for some time to come. In the meantime, I’ll keep using my seat belt and be careful about washing my hands.