Flu as a good if cuckoo thing
Today TPM offered us a link to another article about the swine flu situation.
The story that this flu targets the 10-50 age range continues to be repeated without critique. But we do know that the US cases generally were due to travel to Mexico, and that many such travelers were school-aged kids, and that they may have infected their friends and other students. I have yet to see a news article look into this factor in its effect on the distribution of known USA cases. Is it too obvious, or just anti-sensationalistic?
As to mortality, USA resident deaths are under 2/2500 at this point. The 3 USA reported deaths were all of people who had significant pre-existing medical problems. I wonder how many hospitalization instances also involved pre-existing issues.
If we look at things in terms of ecology, people are organisms in an environment, that is, we are looking at an ecosystem. In natural ecosystems we easily recognize environmental limitations and constraints on populations. But when it comes to people, there is an attitude that life is sacred. This attitude might be anti-ecological if not outright irrational.
From the point of view of ecology we can understand viruses, at least in part, as elements to "thin the herd" (semi-random google hit linked) as is said of wolves and caribou. If the flu has a high morbidity and mortality rating for the "less than medically fit" should we view it as a terrible threat or a natural function? Of course individuals don't generally want to die nor to lose close friends and relatives, but looking at it from the larger point of view, is such a culture out of whack with nature at some point? While culture is necessarily distinct from nature, is a culture which attempts to defy nature at any cost anything more than a collection of metaphysical conceits?
More "herd thinning" links for information or entertainment:
Reverse Darwinism humor
Glen Beck slips it in sotto voce at 2:21
Actual caribou study on confusion
Regulate the regulators
The story that this flu targets the 10-50 age range continues to be repeated without critique. But we do know that the US cases generally were due to travel to Mexico, and that many such travelers were school-aged kids, and that they may have infected their friends and other students. I have yet to see a news article look into this factor in its effect on the distribution of known USA cases. Is it too obvious, or just anti-sensationalistic?
As to mortality, USA resident deaths are under 2/2500 at this point. The 3 USA reported deaths were all of people who had significant pre-existing medical problems. I wonder how many hospitalization instances also involved pre-existing issues.
If we look at things in terms of ecology, people are organisms in an environment, that is, we are looking at an ecosystem. In natural ecosystems we easily recognize environmental limitations and constraints on populations. But when it comes to people, there is an attitude that life is sacred. This attitude might be anti-ecological if not outright irrational.
From the point of view of ecology we can understand viruses, at least in part, as elements to "thin the herd" (semi-random google hit linked) as is said of wolves and caribou. If the flu has a high morbidity and mortality rating for the "less than medically fit" should we view it as a terrible threat or a natural function? Of course individuals don't generally want to die nor to lose close friends and relatives, but looking at it from the larger point of view, is such a culture out of whack with nature at some point? While culture is necessarily distinct from nature, is a culture which attempts to defy nature at any cost anything more than a collection of metaphysical conceits?
More "herd thinning" links for information or entertainment:
Reverse Darwinism humor
Glen Beck slips it in sotto voce at 2:21
Actual caribou study on confusion
Regulate the regulators
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Oh, that Glenn Beck, he's an oh-so-subtle joker, "yanawmsayin?" [wink, wink]. Makes me want to call into his show and ask what Obama's middle name is.
May 11, 2009 8:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
The more fundamental - unspeakable? - issue is population limitation. The world's resources are limited. So we must limit our population. Societies that don't 'Collapse' (Javed Diamond).
Flu is an inefficient and expensive way to limit population. We need free contraception worldwide. We need incentives to have small families.
PS. Your link to "Reverse Darwinism humor" is to a really old made-up story about a law suit: http://www.snopes.com/legal/lawsuits.asp.
Where are your fact-checkers? Better link is http://www.darwinawards.com/
May 11, 2009 10:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
If you read the 'Reverse Darwinism' link you would see the story is described as an urban legend in the comments. It seems you totally missed the "humor" part as well as the 'Reverse' part of the text label for the link. But thanks for commenting!
While it is true that overpopulation can result not only in lower individual standards of living but societal collapse, it's also true that technology offers huge leverage and conservation with reduced "waste" offers significant advantages. It's possible that Earth could support 12B humans, for instance.
You also miss the point of flu as a "population limit". The question of overpopulation is a different question. Eugenics is not euthenasia, for instance. Flu erodes from the weak side the way wolves tend to take out the weak caribou, it is a natural limiter not a mindful method. If you are thinking that some secret cabal develops and releases flu viruses etc. in order to "play God" with population control, that looks like sci-fi at this point. Got something to base that on?
May 11, 2009 3:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eds - sorry my PS missed that you realised it was a spoof - I'm touchy about lawyer jokes ;) And, yes, flu's natural - no conspiracy theory implication intended in my comment.
Can I fill out what I was saying about your post with three points.
1. In humans flu mortality is a function of social choices and societal wealth - vaccination, health care, prevention, isolation wards etc. Viewed globally, flu/disease mortality is a function of which society you are living in - not how 'weak' you are. Disease kills lots of strong adults in poor societies. Its not the same for caribou, who don't have the same social variations.
2. You said (correctly) "In natural ecosystems we easily recognize environmental limitations and constraints on populations." But flu and other diseases don't limit human pop levels anymore. They simply ensure that the survivors are even more likely to reproduce and expand the pop - as per the last 500 years. The only limit on human pop is that the Earth's limited resources mean there is a 'natural' pop limit (and you accept that there is a limit, no?) . So even if flu did strip out weaklings, it makes no better the real problem of humans overreaching our resource base.
3.Isn't that the more important issue? Shouldn't the real priority be achieving a human pop /cionsumption level which is sustainable worldwide - and not on worrying about whether a new strain of flu will kill a few more people? And doesn't the evidence show that our present world pop levels and consumption levels are dangerously high?
May 12, 2009 8:05 AM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know about the danger level.
Sustainability is a virtue but not necessarily the highest relevant virtue, but yes, it seems you are agreeing that the flu hype is misguided.
It's true that medical and social progress has likely limited the "plague factor" effect of many viruses, but don't pretend that many millions didn't die around 1919. That clearly did "thin the herd" whether it took the nominally weak or strong preferentially.
I think you're being simplistic about "only limit". And it kinda misses the point which is not about flu per se but about a culture which places "human life" on a pedestal where it might not belong "sustainably". Look at health care costs and how much we spend on patients in the last 6 months of old age, for instance. This is a real political issue, or at least a real issue beneath the political surface which tends to want to ignore it.
I don't agree with your use of "weak" - for one thing it mixes up individuals with the populations they are part of. Also, I'd be very surprised to see your data to support that the medically strong individuals in a medically weak society are in fact more likely to die from flu than are the weak individuals in that society. So that point seems confused or wrong.
May 12, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Eds re your last para - my point was that it IS the society you are in which is the main determinant of what impact disease has (of course, within a particular soicety the weak are more likely to die - but lots of previously young healthy people die of flu/TB in poor societies, especially if they are the poor. My great-grandparents both died young in the UK in the 1919 flu epidemic. Our wealthy organised society would, I think, mean that such an epidemic would not have the same impact.)
You are absolutely right about the political issue of 'a culture which places "human life" on a pedestal where it might not belong "sustainably"'. When it comes to planning to prevent harm, organised societies may take a realistic approach - eg spending money on highways improvement where fatalities are highest - realising there will always be fatalities. But when it comes to trying to undo/slow harm (eg care for the very seriously ill) its much harder to bear in mind the cost-benefit because there is an already-known person who will die sooner. But there are big debates in the UK (with our, ahem, socialised medecine) over centralised decisions that some drugs are too expensive to justify the small benefits they bring. And, as medecine means patients with very demanding dementia are kept alive for ever longer - with very expensive social care costs - we should start to ask whether that is the best way for society to use its limited resources. I'm not proposing involuntary euthanasia - but we shouldn't think that investing resources in keeping everyone alive as long as possible is a boon to society as a whole.
May 13, 2009 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
"of course, within a particular soicety the weak are more likely to die"
With that, it seems we are in sufficient agreement. Thanks for the discussion!
May 14, 2009 3:06 AM | Reply | Permalink