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May 2, 2009

STEPHANIE SALTER: Lower your swine flu risk: Turn off the television

By Stephanie Salter

TERRE HAUTE — Odd though it may be coming from me, last week was not the best in which to be a news junkie.

The globe really is a village, and these days the village’s collective immune system is getting a workout. All 6.7 billion of us have been reminded that we need to be careful not to suppress our individual slivers of the whole.

Sometimes a steady intake of constantly updated news can be a good thing, pleasurable even. For example, for millions of Democrats, cross-over voters and people in other nations, being glued to a television throughout Nov. 4, 2008, was scary fun. The burst of endorphins that followed the news around 9:20 p.m. EST — Barack Obama was declared the winner of the presidential election — may have reinforced the immune systems of half the world.

I can speak authoritatively only for myself, of course, but I would bet that the opposite is true when hundreds of million people see the word “pandemic” crawl across a TV screen.

Normally, I am a big believer in staying informed. I think information is light and that light always beats darkness — unless you’re trying to sleep or watch a movie on a big screen. But I realized in the middle of this past week that I had reached my optimum level of staying informed about The Virus Formerly Known As Swine Flu.

By the way, my favorite quote about the swift, official shift from “swine flu” to “A(H1N1)” came from Fiona Fleck, a spokesperson for the World Health Organization.

A(H1N1), Fleck told the New York Times, “is not very user friendly. I think it would help all of us if we could find a name that’s easier to say that’s more popular.”

Like maybe the “Tom Hanks Flu”?

By Wednesday, the level of influenza information was spilling over the banks of my brain like river water after a levee breach. I could have gone on “Jeopardy” with the knowledge I had gained about the deadly global flu strains of 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2003.

Every time I passed a television and saw Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano at a podium, I felt certain I could see permanent worry lines forming on her face, right before my eyes. I could only imagine what she knows that we don’t. The knowledge did not seem to contribute to Napolitano getting a good night’s sleep.

I think the tipping point for me came as I watched Dr. Margaret Chan, the head of the WHO, conduct a news conference. I could feel my endorphins actually disappear. Every question she was asked — except one about pharmaceutical companies keeping the poor in mind as they race for a vaccine — sent fear-stoked chills through my body.

Given that chills are a symptom of The Virus Formerly Known As Swine Flu, the Chan encounter was a doubly potent immune system suppressant.

That, I decided, was it for news updates. Already I had all the information I needed. Since the first reported cases of TVFKASF became public, advice from health officials — local and international — had not changed in any significant way:

1. Wash your hands.

2. Cover your mouth if you cough or sneeze.

3. Don’t go to work or school if you are sick, but do go to a doctor or (God, help you) an emergency room.

4. Postpone all but essential travel to Mexico.

Near the end of the week, Vice President Joe Biden contributed his own fifth instruction: Stay out of confined spaces like airplanes and subways.

“That’s me,” Biden hurriedly added, as the stock of every commercial airline on Earth went into rapid descent.

The White House tried to administer an antidote — “What the Vice President meant to say …” — but it was too late. Biden’s amateur science pronouncements about airplane passengers sharing one person’s sneeze were as good as a toxic spill.

Which brings me back to the news.

My advice? During this or any other possible pandemic, avoid 24-hour news cycles. Watch old Goldie Hawn movies or reruns of the Andy Griffith Show. Keep the radio tuned to music or Major League Baseball games.

Follow the universal advice about hand washing, etc. (But remember: To be truly effective, you must wash your hands for at least 30 seconds with warm water and soap. Lightning passes under a cold stream are useless.) Also, make a daily TV check to see if your country has joined the original outbreak nation on the essential-travel-only list, or if your local community is under quarantine.

Beyond that, do whatever you know works to reinforce your immune system, be it zinc lozenges, Zicam, Airborne tablets, a gallon of orange juice or a shot of Bushmill’s. Most of all, think “endorphin raisers.”

Every body responds to different endorphin stimulators. For some people, running five miles is a sure endorphin-level raiser. For others, a five-mile run would put them in the hospital.

Some fairly common pro-endorphin activities are listening to music you like, laughing, holding a happy baby, preparing and eating good food, drinking a nice glass of wine or cup of tea, dancing and making love.

The main thing is, stay away from constantly updated news. It is unhealthy. If the global village reaches a point with a flu epidemic where our only option is “kiss your butt goodbye,” we will know in plenty of time.

Meanwhile, give thanks that you are not Napolitano, Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sibelius, Dr. Richard Besser of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the WHO’s Dr. Chan. We can only imagine a worst-case scenario. These folks know what it is. They need all the endorphin raisers they can get their frequently washed hands on.

Stephanie Salter can be reached at (812) 231-4229 or stephanie.salter@tribstar.com.

III

In case readers missed a recent column correction in their newspapers and on the Tribune-Star Web site, here it is one more time. The Web address for an organization that is taking online petitions in support of Notre Dame, its president and the university’s Commencement Day speaker, President Obama, is:

wesupportnotredame.org.

I’m sorry. I was distracted by TVFKASF.

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