People seem to be besieged by death and disaster lately. They seem to respond bizarrely, overreacting, and hypersensitive to everything involving morbidity, mortality and casualty that they forget how to think like a rational person. These apply to the most recent hot topic worldwide, YES! Influenza A (H1N1). On TV3 Nightline, (8th August 2009), our Prime Minister advised Malaysian not to be scared or overreacted to the current situation of increasing death toll, the government has it all under control. Listen people…BE CALM.
You hardly hear now of earth-shattering news about H1N1 endemic cum pandemic from other country particularly
LISTEN…the mortality rate is only 0.5% of total infected person. Meaning, out of 100 person infected with A(H1N1) virus, only half-of-one person will die (it’s not even one whole person), given IF…he DID NOT get early treatment and IF he IS suffering from co-morbid condition. What good chances can he get? He can get better chance dead out of MVA than this.
I like to interest you to the news I read in the Sun dated August 7th stated in italic only quote by quote, it was from our Health director-general Tan Sri Ismail Merican:
“…most A(H1N1) infections in the world were light cases and 98% of those infected would recover without having to consume any medicine (meaning 2% will have to consume medicine). Therefore, there was no need to panic and rush to hospital to take A (H1N1) tests if the influenza-like illness (
He continued…
“The public should not rush to the clinics – some even waited until 2am or 3am – to take the test. No need. The test is only necessary for those with co-morbid conditions like lung disease, kidney problem, asthma, obesity and diabetes”
“The majority of patients with
“IMR was flooded with close to 500 cases a day requesting for tests and 80% to 90% turned out to be negative.”
See…if we refuse to listen to Health Director-General, who else should we listen to? Bomoh? People Talking on a Street? Non-Sense Gossiper? Get over yourself and BE EDUCATED. We as a medical student should educate others, try hard not to be pulled down and drown together in this frenzy of a sinking irrational ship. It is our responsibility. Please Review the New BMA’s Hippocratic Oath (2004) stanza 1, 9 and 10.
CLICK TO ENLARGE. SAVE IT, PRINT IT, PASTE IT ON YOUR WALL.
’twas taken from Oxford Handbook of Clinical Medicine 7th Edition (no copyright infringement intended)
Sometimes what kills people is not the disease or virus but the fear itself. They become paranoid and start addressing simple headache as cancer, for instance. Sometimes it is only psychological matter (somatization disorder). There was a story of death-row inmate whose death is experimentally funny. Read below.
It was a true story, a group of researcher try to figure out how strong one’s belief can affect them. On the day the inmate supposes to to be executed, they blindfolded him and tied him to a chair. One of the researchers took metal ruler and placed it on his arm. He told the inmate that the ruler is a knife and they are going to slice his arm with it and leave him bleed to death. The researcher graze the inmate’s arm that only so much scratched it and the other researcher slowly dribbled warm water over the grazed part imitating bleeding. Being blindfolded, the prisoner really believed that his arm was sliced and he was bleeding profusely and he cried in pain and surprisingly 10 minutes after, he really died. There’s no cut, no blood but the man died. What killed him? Not the knife of course, but his belief that losing blood could kill him. And indeed he died without any of it.
The same concept applied here. If you believe that H1N1 could kill you, it’ll kill you no doubt about it (sometimes without even infecting you), hands down.
LISTEN! People die. People died before. People die everyday. You and me will die today if not tomorrow or soon or three decades after. They died out of motor vehicle accidents (MVA), heart attacks (MI), suicide, murdered etc. We never seem to make such fuss about it before, did we? We just overemphasizing on the reason of people die as H1N1 when they actually suffering from co-morbid conditions which can be lethal by itself. The virus only turned out to be the 0.5% reason they died. There could be plenty more major complications that lead to their death. But since they found H1N1 virus or antibody in the blood, they assume it was the cause of death (COD), it was easy diagnosis, save them the trouble of forensic investigation, case closed. So, BE RATIONAL.
I couldn’t find any good reason why should I post this article here. I think everybody will already aware of it. But just in case you didn’t, this can be your enlightenment. There you go, the magic words BE CALM, LISTEN, BE EDUCATED and BE RATIONAL. God bless you.
QUERE VERUM (SEEK THE TRUTH)
WhiteLighter
anironundomiel85@gmail.com
