The Media Distorting Information on Illnesses :: Health Medical Essays

The Media Distorting Information on Illnesses Make sure you always use a condom or you might catch AIDS, a disease which will most likely kill us all anyway. Oh, and get your flu shot because this is going to be the worst flu season ever! And do not even think about eating that hamburger or you might put yourself at risk for Mad Cow Disease! Don’t be so quick to open up your mail, or you might get infected with Anthrax! Did you dump all the water out of the pool in the backyard? If not, mosquitoes infected with the West Nile Virus may kill you and your whole family! We better call our friends and tell them about all of this. Wait! Does sunscreen increase your risk of getting skin cancer? Are we all doomed to die from any of these threats? As members of the information age, people grow even more dependent on the information that we get from television, newspapers, and the internet. Constantly on the move, no one has time to fact check every single headline story. As a result, we are putting our faith in sources that crank out sensational headlines to boost ratings and newspaper memberships. So should we all be living in bubbles for the rest of our lives to avoid the many diseases that are competing to take our lives? Or do we use logic to help us wade thru the myths and misinformation? We all know about the flu shots being offered for the past two years, and every year the virus is supposedly getting worse. Therefore, you see long lines at grocery stores with elderly people along with young children to get their flu shot taken care of immediately. And as every year, the hospitals run into a shortage, then the hype of people who really need it not getting it jumps up. Yet no one asks the question â€Å"Do the flu vaccines work?† We see the word vaccine and assume that it will completely prevent us from getting sick. If someone was ask risk of dying from the flu, would the immunization that they received save their life? Or would the flu affect them as badly as if they didn’t get the shot? Kristine M. Severyn R.Ph., Ph.D. says, â€Å"Although influenza is associated with more disease, hospitalization, and death in â€Å"at risk† populations, no adequate controlled studies exist which proves that the influenza vaccine reduces the incidence of inf luenza in these groups†(Vaccine Risk Awareness Network).