Bruno
10-11-2009, 09:37 AM
I didn't know this about my city's history before I read this letter to the editor.
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009910110314
State officials have failed to learn the lessons of history.
By refusing to disclose key information about the H1N1 flu virus, they are making the same mistake the government made during the 1918 pandemic.
In the winter of 1918, the lethal influenza virus erupted in an Army camp in Kansas, and then exploded worldwide, killing more than 100 million people.
In his definitive New York Times best seller, "The Great Influenza," author John Barry concludes the pandemic and panic were made worse by the government withholding of information.
There was terror afoot in 1918," Barry writes. "The randomness of death, its speed, and its tendency to kill off the healthiest brought that terror home."
"The media and public officials helped create that terror - not by exaggerating the disease but by minimizing it, in their attempts to reassure the public," Barry concludes. "The fear, not the disease, threatened to break the society apart."
Iowa was in the thick of it.
"Outside Des Moines, Iowa, at Camp Dodge, also, influenza was killing hundreds of young soldiers," writes Barry. "Within the city a group called the Greater Des Moines Committee, businessmen and professionals who had taken charge during the emergency, included the city attorney who warned publishers ...'I would recommend that if anything be printed in regard to the disease it be confined to simple preventative measures - something constructive rather than destructive.' "
The media by and large followed the directive.
Today, state health department officials describe the two recent victims only as "adult males" from eastern Iowa. This kind of information is vague to the point of being useless.
Iowans have a right to more information about infectious diseases so that they can take necessary precautions regarding their personal behavior. Specifically, they have a need to know the age, county of residence and the cause of death, along with any conditions that made them more vulnerable to H1N1.
Vague language creates mistrust, causes people to assume the worst and shows a lack of respect for the citizens. Getting governments to tell the truth about the disease "is perhaps the biggest lesson of 1918, and it is a lesson not yet learned," Barry concludes.
"Those in authority must retain the public's trust," he writes. "The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one."
The best medicine would be a simple, straightforward statement of the facts.
- Bill Schickel, former mayor, Mason City
http://www.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009910110314
State officials have failed to learn the lessons of history.
By refusing to disclose key information about the H1N1 flu virus, they are making the same mistake the government made during the 1918 pandemic.
In the winter of 1918, the lethal influenza virus erupted in an Army camp in Kansas, and then exploded worldwide, killing more than 100 million people.
In his definitive New York Times best seller, "The Great Influenza," author John Barry concludes the pandemic and panic were made worse by the government withholding of information.
There was terror afoot in 1918," Barry writes. "The randomness of death, its speed, and its tendency to kill off the healthiest brought that terror home."
"The media and public officials helped create that terror - not by exaggerating the disease but by minimizing it, in their attempts to reassure the public," Barry concludes. "The fear, not the disease, threatened to break the society apart."
Iowa was in the thick of it.
"Outside Des Moines, Iowa, at Camp Dodge, also, influenza was killing hundreds of young soldiers," writes Barry. "Within the city a group called the Greater Des Moines Committee, businessmen and professionals who had taken charge during the emergency, included the city attorney who warned publishers ...'I would recommend that if anything be printed in regard to the disease it be confined to simple preventative measures - something constructive rather than destructive.' "
The media by and large followed the directive.
Today, state health department officials describe the two recent victims only as "adult males" from eastern Iowa. This kind of information is vague to the point of being useless.
Iowans have a right to more information about infectious diseases so that they can take necessary precautions regarding their personal behavior. Specifically, they have a need to know the age, county of residence and the cause of death, along with any conditions that made them more vulnerable to H1N1.
Vague language creates mistrust, causes people to assume the worst and shows a lack of respect for the citizens. Getting governments to tell the truth about the disease "is perhaps the biggest lesson of 1918, and it is a lesson not yet learned," Barry concludes.
"Those in authority must retain the public's trust," he writes. "The way to do that is to distort nothing, to put the best face on nothing, to try to manipulate no one."
The best medicine would be a simple, straightforward statement of the facts.
- Bill Schickel, former mayor, Mason City