Diseases of the Rich - Swine Flu v Tuberculosis news-to-death ratios

Tuesday, May 12. 2009

Diseases of the Rich - Swine Flu v Tuberculosis news-to-death ratios

How media hypes diseases of the rich (from Hans Rosling)

This video is on YouTube, and says eloquently what I moaned about a week ago, ie the totally unrelated epidemics of swine flu in the media vs on the ground.

During the last 13 days, up to May 6, WHO has confirmed that 25 countries are affected by the Swine flu and 31 persons have died from Swine flu. WHO data indicates that about 60 000 persons died from TB during the same period. By a rough comparison with the number of news reports found by Google news search, Hans Rosling calculates a News/Death ratio and issue an alert for a media hype on Swine flu and a neglect of tuberculosis.

It makes me sad to realise my diatribes against media hype of swine flu count as increasing its news to death ratio.

Posted by Alan Patrick in Odds and Sods at 07:23 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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