It’s
hard to turn on the television or listen to the radio without hearing about
the dangers of an impending pandemic of the Avian Flu (often called the ‘bird
flu’). Day after day, the media interview expert after expert who
claim that the bird flu is going to cause massive world-wide illness and
death. Fortunately, the ‘bird flu pandemic’ is more of a monster
in the media than it is in real life.
While it
is true that the 1918 influenza pandemic, which led to the deaths of millions
of people, was also a bird flu, there are some things to think about before
you spend your money to build a quarantine chamber in your home or purchase
a biological contamination suit off of eBay:
- The
bird flu is not new. It has been around as long as birds have. There
have only been a couple times in recorded history when a mutation in
the virus allowed the bird flu to infect humans. In virtually all incidences
when human infection did occur, only a few people ever became sick.
- To date,
there have been only a tiny handful of cases of human bird flu world-wide,
and almost all of them in under-developed countries where sanitation
and public health standards are minimal, at best. Even if a hundred thousand
people world-wide were to become infected with the bird flu and a third
of them were to die, that would still be far fewer than the number of
people who are hospitalized or die from adverse drug reactions each year.
- Even
in the very unlikely event that the bird flu came to a neighborhood near
you, your chances of becoming infected would be very small as long as
your immune system was healthy and you took some simple precautions,
such as washing your hands throughout the day.
Research
has shown that chiropractic care boosts the function of the immune system
and helps the body ward off disease. The key to avoiding diseases like
the bird flu is to keep your immune system strong through a healthy diet
and regular chiropractic care.
