The Media, Captain Trips, and the Swine Flu

The Media, Captain Trips, and the Swine Flu
By Robert Forto, PhD

On Monday, April 27th, I was driving my wife to work to Denver Dog Works and I was listening to my regular morning radio on KHOW in Denver with the host, Peter Boyles. He had a short segment on the swine flu and how people are relating it to the Stephen King book, The Stand. The book is an epic thriller in which a man-made flu virus escapes from a government lab and wrecks havoc on the world. The super-flu kills 99.4% of the world’s population and the story is a good-versus-evil struggle that is close to 1000 pages in length. It is a must read if you are a Stephen King fan and a chilling read if you so chose to parallel it to the current panic with the outbreak of the swine flu.

I quickly posted my parallel to the book and the swine flu on Twitter and Facebook (as did a lot of other people I’m sure) it has kicked off a barrage of commentary from my followers on the popular social media sites. I was quickly followed by other twitter users, tweeters as they are affectionately known, that also capitalized on the parallel. One tweeter in particular goes by the name of @motherabigail. Mother Abigail is a key character in the King story and calls on a band of survivors to go to Boulder to start a new society. Another tweeter, @vegaswalkindude is the character in the book known as Randall Flagg. Flagg is the “evil” character in the book and he has his followers in the post-apocalyptic world.

"Captain Trips"

The novel (The Stand) is divided into three parts, or books. The first is titled "Captain Trips" and takes place over nineteen days, with the escape and spread of a human-made biological weapon, a superflu (influenza) virus known formally as "Project Blue" and colloquially as "Captain Trips." The epidemic leads to the death of most of the human population in North America (and the world: it is hinted that General Starkey’s men had released the virus in eastern Europe, China, and the Soviet Union; and Peru and Senegal are mentioned in discussion of post-epidemic deaths due to natural causes).

99.4% of people are susceptible to Captain Trips, and the disease has a mortality rate of 100%. King outlines the total breakdown and destruction of society through widespread violence, the failure of martial law to contain the outbreak, and eventually the death of virtually the entire population. The human toll is also dealt with, as the few survivors must care for their families and friends, dealing with confusion and grief as their loved ones ultimately succumb to the flu, which has inexplicably spared them.

The expanded edition opens with a prologue titled "The Circle Opens" that offers greater detail into the circumstances surrounding the development of the virus and the security breach that allowed its escape from the secret laboratory compound where it was created. (Citation: Wikipedia)

The Media

So just what is this swine flu that we are dealing with and can we equate it to popular fiction such as King’s The Stand? As you may know, the media has prompted us to believe this is a world-wide emergency. A pandemic of epic proportions. One like we have not seen in generations. Sure we have dealt with influenzas before. History will show us that the outbreak in 1917 and in 1957-58 were killer-flu’s of astronomical proportion. But, what about this one? The swine flu as it is being called, started on a pig farm in Mexico about two weeks ago and effectively shut down Mexico City, the world’s largest city because of it. It is rumored that this flu has killed up to 100 people and is spreading worldwide as we speak.

The swine flu has now spread to at least ten states, at the time of this post, and several towns in Texas have cancelled school at least for a week and other events like dog shows and sporting events. But did you know that the common-run-of-the-mill flu that most of us contract every winter kills seven people an hour? Now that is “astronomical proportions” if I do say so myself.
So what has us so worried about it this time? I think that the media and the talking heads think that it is time for us to have a pandemic. We haven’t had one in a long time have we? What I mean when I say that they think it is time is two-fold in my opinion. First pandemics occur kind of like earthquakes and tremors. You get a little blip and then you brace yourself for the big one. California has been bracing itself for decades.

The flu, any kind really, whether it be avian, human, or swine, must mutate before they reach their full potential and their true danger. True, this swine flu has mutated and “jumped” from host to host (pig to human) in this case and that is what scares us. So what is likely to happen? I think that this “version” of the super-flu will peter out and go underground just to resurface. Maybe this winter. Maybe next and we will be faced with a flu virus that we are ready to confront. We will have vaccines in place by then and protocols to deal with a true outbreak.
The second reason I think that the media thinks it is time is: most of the media is based on fear-mongering. They do it to us every day. Think about it. They are doing it with their nightly reports on the collapse of the economy, the foreclosures, the failure of the banks, the unemployment rate. But are any of those situations that bad? Let’s take the economy. Sure our spending as a whole is down but unless you have lost your job, have you really changed your lifestyle that much? It doesn’t look like it. The movie theaters and restaurants are packed and I had to take a number and wait an hour to be helped at the Apple store the other day.

Foreclosures are on the decline. A friend of mine, who is in the real estate business said that foreclosures are down 50% since January. With the banks: only 5% have failed and most of those were bought up by larger banks. Has your bank closed? I doubt it. And the unemployment rate is only up about three percent more than it is from the normal range here in Colorado. What is it 8%? That means that 92% of us still have jobs.

I am not trying to minimize any of this. I am a small business owner and I know that people have changed their spending habits just by looking at my bottom line. We had a much lower quarter that just passed than we did the same quarter last year. But what I am saying is that it is the media hype that has us all scared to death. Whether it is the swine-flu (Captain Trips or the super-flu) or our almighty dollar, the media has us just where they want us.

Why do we read books like King’s The Stand? Watch movies like Outbreak? And read books like The Hot Zone? Watch dramas like The Band Played On? Each of these stories scared us to the core about something that we cannot control. Whether it is Captain Trips, E-Bola or the A.I.D.S. virus. We watch (or read) this stuff because we like to be scared. Think about it. We go to horror movies and ride roller coasters because it is human nature to test our limits and walk out of there as a “survivor” having conquered the monster. Make believe or not.

That is what the media does as well. They provoke these same emotions that are primal in us all. Think about it. When was the last time you watched the news and it wasn’t doom and gloom? What is always the fist story? It’s not the feel good “how much is that puppy in the window” story is it? When the media reports they always report it as a slant. They will say something like: “the economy is rebounding---but---the unemployment rate remains steady” or “The swine-flu seems to have leveled off in Mexico---but there are now confirmed cases in ten U.S. states.”

So I ask you my fellow reader and provocateur of the fear, is this what really scares us or is it just another story in the days of our lives?

I welcome all of your comments and criticisms. Let’s keep the discussion alive while it is still a story and not just yesterday’s news as this story will pass soon enough.
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Dr. Robert Forto is the training director of Denver Dog Works and The Ineka Project in Colorado. He can be reached through is website at http://www.inekaproject.org or by phone at 303-522-1727.