Yep, Americans listened to the news media yet again

In case you have missed it, Chagas disease is supposed to be the latest new disease that can ravage the USA. Oh, you are still talking about Ebola? That is so old news. I mean, there are no new cases of Ebola and nothing is happening, like. And, you know, like, the news media would certainly inform us correctly if there was a real danger of Ebola, like. But, you know, the news media is now informing us that Chagas disease is a real danger to us. And, you know, like, it comes from those immigrants coming over from Mexico, like. we have to stop them!

If you think I am kidding about the news media moving on to a new disease, and one that is brought in by immigrants, just read here. The Daily Mail calls it the new AIDS. And, of course, to keep it up-to-date with current events, it is brought in by those pesky illegal immigrants.

Both Ebola and Chagas are troublesome diseases. Ebola is particularly dangerous and can be communicated easily during certain parts of its life-cycle. But, the current hysteria surrounding Ebola reminds me of nothing more than the hysteria over AIDS, the Swine Flu, H1N1, over vaccines causing autism, etc. In every case, a controllable medical situation was made out to be a Hollywood disaster movie by the news media.

In every case, unnecessary resources were wasted because we had to guard ourselves against the disease. In every case, human beings were mistreated out of unmerited fear. In every case, some conspiracy theory arouse that tied the government and some supposed medical establishment together. In every case, science was disdained, and the lone opponent/scientist that knew the real truth was featured on the news media as the only one that was telling the truth, which was that the end of the world was coming in a medical apocalypse that would kill millions.

In every case, the news media was sensationalizing the story with false facts in order to get you to watch them. In every case, there has been no later apology for the overt mishandling of the news concerning the disease. In every case, the victims of the false news stories never received apologies for their mistreatment or compensation for lost work or lost wages. In every case, there yet remains a pool of people in the United States of America who still go around refusing to vaccinate their children, or refusing to shake hands with a person who is HIV positive, or worried about the flu, or refusing to rent to people who have never had Ebola, or trying to quarantine people who have never been exposed (like the schoolteacher who was put on leave because she had simply flown in to Dallas).

And, sadly, in every case, there are a number of Americans, even those claiming to be Christian, who show no measure of repentance for their failure to handle the news correctly, for their failure to listen to medical authorities, and for their guilt in continuing to spread false news about those diseases. No, the classic line is that they did what they thought was right at the time given the limited information. This is a false reason, because in every case there was correct information from the medical establishment. There was simply a refusal by those “good” (but actually incredibly sinful) Christians to believe the medical establishment and to choose to believe the false god of conspiracy theory.

So, now Ebola is old news. The panic is still ongoing, but the news media is no longer talking about it. Yet, the scars are fresh. And, it is doubtful that many of the worst offenders will even give a thought to the fact that they helped to mislead a country, to mistreat people, and to show how little they actually believe in verifiable truth. No, they are just fertile fodder waiting for the next equally misleading news story. And, that is a sad thought on this night.