Let's All Stop Freaking Out About West Nile

By Eric Nicholson Fri., Jul. 13 2012 at 9:35 AM

There are plenty of reason to hate the sons of bitches, but West Nile is a very small one.

It's like clockwork. Every year as summer rolls around, media outlets begin to hyperventilate about the approaching West Nile epidemic, then proceed to breathlessly report on every single human case that shows up. Public health experts dutifully slip on their white coats and talk about what a grave danger West Nile is and all the things people can do to defend themselves.

This year's mild winter does seem to have made the virus appear earlier, and West Nile can indeed be a terrible disease, causing paralysis, permanent neurological damage and death. But that rarely happens.

Through July 3, there have been a total of five cases of the most severe form of West Nile. That's not in Dallas or North Texas. That's nationwide.

Even at its most severe, West Nile kills only 200 to 300 people in a given year in the U.S. The flu, strep throat, choking and accidentally getting caught in machinery are all more common causes of death.

And the few dozen people who contract the most serious form of the disease will be far outnumbered by the number of people who suffer from moderate flu-like symptoms, who will in turn be vastly outnumbered by carriers who suffer no ill effects whatsoever.

That's not to say that people shouldn't take steps to protect against mosquito bites. As Dr. Cedrik Spak explained to KERA a couple of weeks ago in the most informative and level-headed media treatment of the disease I've come across (because it's the doctor who does all the talking), older people with other medical conditions like diabetes or liver and kidney problems are at elevated risk. The rest of us shouldn't worry so much.

"[P]robably what's happened since Texas got West Nile is that most of us have been exposed to West Nile in kind of the same way that a lot of us when we were kids were exposed to chicken pox, or whatever. So now, we're protected. We're immune, we can't get it again," he told KERA.

So how to explain the annual freakout? The media plays a big role, no doubt, and public health officials, in an attempt to convey the message that they are doing something, exaggerate the risks. But my money's on the name -- exotic, vaguely threatening, and, most of all, from Africa. You rarely, after all, hear people peeing themselves over St. Louis encephalitis.

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Sean Lemoine

I am not sure whether to be condescending about this article or try to debate the argument. Here's my story. http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-news/dallas/headlines/20100523-East-Dallas-man-who-survived-West-1534.ece

concerned citizen

"The rest of us shouldn't worry so much?!" Your hubris is appalling. My husband was 36 years old, completely healthy -- he wasn't an old man; didn't have a compromised immune system. Because of West Nile, he became a ventilator dependent quadriplegic. That's right, that mosquito that you said we shouldn't worry about turned a father of 2 young kids into Christopher Reeve post-accident. He couldn't move or breathe on his own. He was like that for MONTHS. After a year of rehab, he got off the ventilator and learned to walk and eat again, but he is still a cripple and has one functioning lung. He's now a 39 year old trapped in a 75 year old's body. No one knows why he got so sick. Could've happened to anyone. That's why I worry so much, and so should everyone else.

Slewfoot

Eric Nicholson is a fool. Some kid with a CC degree making zip by working freelance. No science background at all. Likely never passed freshman algebra.Eric, you have no idea what you're talking about.Shut the fuck up.

Doug

And the morons on local news shows will all run breathless stories about cities spraying (an INCREDIBLE waste of money) to kill these bastard mosquitos in 3..2..1

Lemonaioli

Grave danger? Is there another kind? (done in my best Tom Cruise/Jack Nicholson voices)

Zizi JeanMer

You people should be freaking out about all the parasites that infest the lakes around Dallas.

chasd00

my brother in law had it this year, luckily not the version you had. He still had really bad problems with his hands and was unable to use his fingers for a week or so. He's an architect so finger dexterity is a pretty major deal for the financial well being of his family. My poor sister is pretty freaked out because they have a 6 month old and she's worried about him but overall things are getting back to normal for them.

Bugs suck

I got West Nile when I was in high school. It sucked. They didnt even realize I had it til after I was over it because my doctor didnt think people would actually catch it. I got a new doctor after that.

Steve

Coming up on The Update: What you're doing right now will probably kill you, and A Local Man fights City Hall in an effort to turn an outhouse into a Post Office.

RWilliams

You miss the point. West Nile isn't a particularly legitimate news story. Instead, it's the archetypical Boogeyman story (like The Man with the Hook, the Halloween Poisoner, or the Shopping Mall Kidnapper.) Just think: an innocent couple is enjoying an end-of-day glass of wine on their patio when --- BUZZAP! --- an unseen thing injects them with zombie venom. The couple's behavior is so ordinary and familiar, the consequences so horrific, that we can imagine it happening to ourselves. (Or, at least, to a friend of a friend). The West Nile story is just another iteration of the scary stories we told around the campfire.

G'Kar Jr.

Aw, you're no fun! I like freaking out about West Nile!

Honeybee

I'm under 50 and I remember my aunt bringing my cousin over when I had chickenpox so my cousin would get them, too. My mom said that was what everyone did--along with smoking during pregnancy, letting your kids stand up in the front seat of the car, and trusting kindergarteners to walk several blocks to school alone. Fast-forward to my own child. We declined the then-brand-new chickenpox vaccine and, what do you know, he got the pox. Af first it was sort of cute--all the spots--but by the 3rd day he was absolutely miserable and I was wracked with guilt. Baby #2 got the vaccine. I think we freak out over West Nile bc we haven't seen most people we know recover from measles, mumps, chickenpox, etc. We know longer realize how tough most humans are, so we're afraid.

Albert

Freaking out is the best way to avoid this menace. The little bastards can't land and bite if you're running around in circles flailing your arms. Not much you can do about East Nile Virus though, it infects you with a funny accent.