Methane Oceans

I love reading bad science stories, they can make me laugh. Actually, it’s a love/hate thing because I can also I find it rather frustrating. I saw it recently while reading some moon hoax stories last week for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing. I found those stories more amusing because they don’t have an immediate impact on us as a society. Yes, given enough people, it can impact us because it shows a lack of understanding of science.

Then there are those who understand science so badly that it does worry me:

Is H1N1 just the seasonal flu for 2009/2010 with a new name? Is it a pandemic? What is a pandemic anyway? I think of Anthrax or Ebola and people dying in droves. Feel free to correct me.

She then goes on to quote an article about the vaccine being developed. The article closes with this:

China has seen 1,668 cases of the virus, according to health ministry statistics, but no deaths have since been reported.

I should point out that China is not always the most reliable when it comes to news stories. Of course, Age of Autism isn’t the most reliable either (spend some time searching his site for more examples). Examples of unreliability do not mean that someone is always wrong, but personally, I take everything they say with a grain of salt until I find proof of them being right or wrong.

Back to the author’s original questions. Why did I feel the need to post them? Why do I worry? Because the same author posted their comment of the week (two hours later):

6,772,357,798 people on Earth, 429 deaths, from 94,512 cases, worldwide. How is this a pandemic?

So, Ms. Stagliano doesn’t know what a pandemic is but decides to give an award to someone who questions the H1N1 pandemic without even looking up the definition? A 20 second search on Google for the definition of pandemic gave me this from Merriam-Webster:

pandemic (adjective) occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population

pandemic (noun) a pandemic outbreak of a disease

I don’t see the word death in those definitions. The same goes with the WHO’s site, no mention of death that I saw. For a nice breakdown of pandemics, I suggest the blog Aetiology by Tara C. Smith:

Does 7 deaths REALLY constitute a pandemic? Are we that wussy and panic-prone as a society that the WHO freaks out over a couple deaths from the freakin’ flu?

And this is what I was getting at with my comment on pandemic phases. The number of deaths don’t matter–it’s the transmission in the human population that’s key.

Ok, they got a definition wrong, no big deal, right? Actually, it is a big deal when you’re implying that it’s not really a pandemicl so don’t worry. It is a big deal when you imply that someone doesn’t need to get a vaccine because the fatality rate of the disease is so low, they’d likely be fine even if they got it.

I got into a discussion the other day with some coworkers about the flu vaccine (the regular one). They were saying they never get the flu so they were going to pass on it. I told them I was going to get it because it would not only help protect me but also those around me. I don’t know about anyone else, but I’d hate to get any vaccine preventable disease and then know I may pass it on to someone who couldn’t get the vaccine for some reason (they may have health reasons, are too young, or have parents who don’t understand science) are now permanently harmed (or worse) by that disease. It’s called Herd Immunity, pass it on.