Fear the Super Bug!

OK, the media drives me nuts, every day there is some super-bug or disease I must live in fear of or at least they really want me to live in fear of. In years past it was Super-Strep (the flesh eating kind), SARS, Bird Flu, West Nile Virus and of course the affliction du jour MRSA. Now there is a new drug resistant and even nastier strain of MRSA that is affecting gay men in high density population centers (San Francisco, Boston etc…). Now the warning is that it’s likely to make the jump to the general population (insert the words "imminent jump" if you’re on CNN or one of its brethren) and it’s been shown to be sexually transmitted.

I realize this is a serious issue, but at the same time I feel like it’s being twisted by the media to add fear to my life. If it isn’t a disease, it’s the recession (or lack there of) or it’s the war or some other thing that adds stress and pain to my psyche, but racks up ratings and money for them. MRSA is avoidable with good hygiene and vigilance, but the media likes to ignore that completely or hide it at the end of a story. Instead the news is spending a lot of time on the gory details of the MRSA infections. I realize the media needs to report on public health issues and I would hate to not know that there is a threat. Yet, here is the issue to me, I think the media exaggerates and misleads us about the seriousness or spread of a lot of these issues because it helps them score ratings and ad money. If you’ll excuse me, I now must buy some sanitizer for my desk so I can avoid the regular flu that is hitting my co-workers, but not that's not getting any news time. I’m also going to price out full body condoms and the going rate of a fall-out shelter or some other remote piece of real estate as the ultimate protection…you can never be too safe, right? ;-)