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2001-10-12 - 8:25 a.m.

THE REAL DANGER OF IMAGINARY ZEBRAS

Some people are worrying about anthrax. I�m worrying about the flu. Actually, it�s not exactly the flu I�m worrying about. They have flu shots and I get one every year. It�s the hysteria that�s likely to accompany this year�s inevitable flu epidemic that concerns me. In the long run, the hysteria may be more dangerous to more of us than anthrax.

In a normal flu season, at least here in the snowy north, the emergency rooms tend to clog up as badly as the nasal passages of any of the epidemic�s victims. Those who don�t have or can�t afford family doctors show up hoping that some doctor, any doctor, can do more for them than Tylenol, chicken soup, and rest. They beg for antibiotics in the belief that there must be some magic pill that will alleviate their suffering. Some of them get those antibiotics and slowly, but increasingly quickly, we reduce the ability of antibiotics to do what they were intended to do. Until now, more and more doctors were resisting the pressure to prescribe.

Just think what�s about to happen this flu season. If you look at the symptoms they list for anthrax, the early symptoms look amazingly like the flu. How many frightened people who would otherwise have stayed home and suffered through the flu are now going to believe they must add to the clog in the emergency rooms, insisting on expensive antibiotics �just in case?� How many doctors are going to give them �just in case?� Too many people in our culture believe in conspiracies as easily as they believe that one plus one equals two. (Actually, the belief that one plus one must equal two is as assailable as the conspiracy belief but that�s a discussion for another day. Where is Elvis anyway?) We seem particularly well wired to believe in anthrax over the flu.

Even if it were not for the antibiotic problem, the hysteria would be dangerous in flu season. The filling of the emergency rooms and the resulting diversion of ambulances will do damage. When the hysterical are in the emergency room, supposedly pleading for their lives, the delay in treatment will do real harm to those who truly need the help.

Doctors tell each other to look for horses, not zebras, when diagnosing patients. But people are about to insist every horse is a zebra. Unfortunately, even imaginary zebras stampede.

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