West Nile Virus Hype and this "when will it be over" Tomato Scare

Recently, a team of "experts" from the health department stormed through our tranquil little community garden, giving me a citation, along with about half the other gardeners. What was our crime? Watering cans! They cautioned us, of course, about the dreaded, feared, massively awful, seriously harmful scourge-of-death known as West Nile Virus - it surprised me that they were going after community gardeners, who tend a small 15x15 plot and keep track of things like their watering cans, which are, needless to say, routinely dumped out onto the plants. I thought I should perhaps become more informed on this serious matter called West Nile Virus.

So I got on the Web and took a look at the facts. As it turns out, of the less than 4,000 Americans a year who are infected, less than 1% develop serious symptoms from West Nile. If the patient is already battling other diseases/illnesses, or is extremely elderly, those in the 1% are at risk of death. However, only 20% of those infected even show any symptoms, and if you're healthy already, you can be pretty sure you're fine.

In researching this, I was alarmed to read that the CDC advises citizens to even consider staying indoors to avoid West Nile. Americans do not need to be told to have a more sedentary lifestyle! Citizens are also poisoning water sources with Deet or other hamful agents, just to kill the mosquitoes (which by the way are an important link in the food chain). Since when is a one-in-a-million chance of death such a deterrent to Americans? Is this more important than clean water to drink and swim in? For comparison's sake: by driving rather than walking/biking outdoors, more than 40,000 people die each year in car accidents in the U.S. The figures speak for themselves.

This hype reminded me of the big "tomato scare" in the media now. Let's look for a moment at salmonella - they call it an "epidemic," but not a single person has died this year. The disease involves diarrhea, fever, and cramping - same as any bad food poisoning (or if you've travelled in Latin America, akin to a mild case of "Montezuma's Revenge!"). And there is a huge public scare over this "outbreak" of salmonella - sure, it's an unpleasant illness, but it is truly unbelievable that all of a sudden we're worried that tomatoes or other vegetables are unsafe. Try a McDonald's meal for unsafe - it's 100% guaranteed that having an unhealthy lifestyle, eating McDonald's meals and other fast food, will lead to heart disease, the #1 cause of death in the United States, killing roughly 2,000 Americans a day. After they're done working around the clock to find the salmonella-infected tomatoes, maybe the FDA can focus on that one next!

(...and the burning question is of course, if it takes so many federal agents to find out where our tomatoes come from, how do we expect the average citizen to be informed on where their food comes from???)

It just doesn't seem like these punishments fit the crime - if we truly care about keeping healthy and staying alive, we are barking up the wrong tree worrying about West Nile or salmonella. If we spent less time worrying about obscure illnesses and more time on our lifestyle choices, we'd be a healthier, happier America.

I propose society focuses our collective time and attention on things that really matter, and work on those issues that affect the greatest good: promoting fresh air and exercise, clean water, eating your vegetables, and keeping our ecosystem intact... and leave my watering can alone!

-Lorien