H1N1

First of all, i know it's probably early in the course, but you don't have swine flu. Let me repeat: You don't have swine flu. You haven't been to mexico. You don't live near cold springs. You don't even have a fever. So calm the F down.

I don't blame you. A few headlines if i may: Hundreds may die from swine flu. Swine flu takes health community by surprise. Swine flu pandemic imminent. One step from pandemic. I wonder how these headlines help us as a community. Very little has been mentioned regarding how to prevent infection. Wash your hands. Cover your cough. Eat healthy foods and drink water to keep your immune system functioning and stay home when you're sick.

Which leads me to another point. There has been a hindsight shout out in articles about staying home when you're sick. But this isn't the mindset in our culture. It is frowned upon to call in sick to work. This is evidenced by limited sick time, combining sick and vacation time and needing a note from your health care provider if you're "sick" longer than 4 days. This note requires a visit to the clinic and most of the time, people don't need medication. They need to stay home, feed their immune system and stop giving it to all the well child visits in the waiting room. Talk about wasteful healthcare spending.

This is not to undermine the severity of this particular strain. But nothing has confirmed the 'cytokine storm' theory of this particular strain (ie, deaths in the young young, old, and 20-40 yr olds). And the good news is that we have antivirals for this. But you don't need them right now. Because you don't have swine flu. So stop calling me and asking for them.

Famous last words, or wise beyond my years? Time will tell...

BTW: As if we needed another reason to scare the white people about the brown people.
BTW: Michelle Bachmann: You're an F-ing idiot.