MEDIA INTENTIONALLY INDUCES EBOLA PANIC

Public health officials should investigate the way the media is handling the news about the Ebola case in Dallas Texas. Obviously, the objective would be not to stifle news coverage but to see where the health industry could have done better with news releases and interviews with medical personnel. I listen to “talking head” after “talking head” try to make their coverage more exciting than the next person. The result is a great distortion of the facts. For example, the number of people exposed to the individual ranged from the low teens to hundreds. My interpretation is that some of the “news people’ deliberately misread the new releases from the medical community by saying that all of the people “confined to the tight space on the planes” he was on “for long times” with “recycled air”, etc. The most egregious lie was making the intentional panic inducing statements by saying he exposed “four” children; hence, the entire student body in the schools they go to; hence, exposed thousands of children to the Ebola virus—usually couching what they say in terms like “death inducting virus” or, “deadly infection”. Then, to make things worse, they stick a microphone in the faces of some parent and ask, “Do you think this is the thing to do?”, or something equally asinine.

The medical facts seem to be that the virus is spread by direct contact with body fluids; tears, saliva, urine, feces, and semen but only if the fluid touches the mucous membrane or open wound after the patients are sick. They do not seem to understand what a 21 day, non infectious incubation period means. The man in the Dallas hospital was not sick. He did not have a temperature increase, he was not vomiting, nor was he peeing on people feet, especially those with broken blister on their big toe, certainly ridiculous. People respond to this talking heads as if they believe what they hear—panic sets in and then it is too late to prevent them from doing ridiculous things—for example, not traveling, which caused them to sell off airline stocks. Oh, and we cannot forget, their news show ratings go up which is what the news media wants but also it may mean people want to be panicked. Can you, in your wildest imagination, think that anyone on any of those planes, even the person in the seat next to the patient was infected?   

Although not as headline grabbing, they are doing the same thing with the enterovirus infections. I have no idea of what the “true facts” surrounding the infectivity of this virus really is or the consequences of being infected. There is something fundamentally wrong in the chain of understanding between the people, the medical community, and the media.   

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