Of bee stings, Ebola, data abuse and the contagion that's spreading fast: Fear
I was hiking this weekend and suffered the bad luck of having a bee (or wasp?) literally fall inside my shirtcollar. A moment later, I felt a prick on my neck, and whatever it was flew away. That stinks, I thought. But one person I was with immediately started turning white. She had a bad memory -- when she was a child, her father had been stung and suffered anaphylaxis . She remembers watching as her father turned blue, was rushed to the hospital, and almost died. So she blurted out, "Are you allergic?" to which I gave the educated answer, "I have no idea."
What followed next was a quick smartphone Internet search about anaphylaxis symptoms, risks, etc. We weren't far from help, but we weren't close, either. If I had stopped breathing, we would have been in trouble.
The first news story I happened on had this headline: "When one bee sting is your last." It had a measured, thoughtful: "Millions of Americans live out their lives unaware that they are severely allergic to bee and wasp stings, so much so that a single sting can send them into anaphylactic shock and cause death."
Well, that's enough to give someone symptoms of anaphylaxis: anxiety and difficulty breathing. Fortunately, I am an experienced journalist, so I had some sense of what might be going on with this story, which went on to include this rather remarkably twisted paragraph: "According to government statistics, about 3.3 percent of adults will experience anaphylaxis after an insect sting and there are 40 to as many as 100 deaths annually from insect-sting-related anaphylaxis."
Hold on here: So roughly 8 millions Americans "will" experience a terrible reaction from a bee sting....YIKES!!! I really could be in trouble. Especially if they have somehow made their own nest in the house, then I could possibly have a higher chance of being stung by a bee. Pest control experts who are similar to this terminix oregon company could be the solution that you are looking for in order to live freely in your home without having to worry about getting a bee sting. There are other things that you can try, but this may be the most effective option to prevent having a terrible reaction. But only 40 or 50 die annually? Oh. It's one of THOSE stories.
Data abuse.
Yes, you can die from a bee sting. But the odds of it are infinitesimally low. Even if you are allergic to bees...and there's already low odds of that...the odds of death are tiny. Roughly the same as dying from a lightning strike. Slightly better than dying from a shark attack (depending on the year). And I'm sure I don't have to mention that more than 50 people have probably died in a car accident while you read this story.
I share this story now because I think it's incredibly important we all be, ahem, "mature" readers of the news during the Ebola scare. Humans are not naturally good at assessing risk. In the face of incomplete information, we are downright terrible at it. Hugh Thompson and I wrote a lot about in The Plateau Effect. It's why people persistently make bad investment decisions, insurance decisions, and so on. Your high-cholesterol diet is a hell of lot more dangerous than bee stings, shark bites, and certainly at the moment, Ebola. But Ebola has captured out imagination, and many of us are having a hard time keeping our heads while those about us are losing theirs.
Back to bee stings for a moment. In further research, I also found this story, from earlier this year: "Bee stings are behind most insect-related deaths for workers." YIKES!
So what is the extent of bee deaths? Well, according to the U.S. Labor Department, there were 52. That's during an eight-year stretch from 2003-2010. Sigh.
Let's get this straight: Of course, bee stings can be very serious. A non-fatal anaphylactic reaction can be very, very menacing, as you'll see if you search Google images for bee sting first aid pictures. In reality, it's very hard to find solid data on real deaths and injuries from bee stings, as this very reasonable paper points out. The 50-100 deaths annually is a guess. And the number would almost certainly be higher if there weren't great awareness of bee sting allergies and the care victims get, via epi-pens and subsequent emergency room admission. Bee stings are no joke. Like any allergic reaction, they are best dealt with by level-headed, reasonable reactions.
But it's easy to imagine that over-reaction to bee stings is more dangerous than the sting itself. I'm a sober journalist and my brother is a doctor, yet I still got nervous reading the Internet for information on stings. I can only imagine how a person in a more precarious situation might react. Think of all the car accidents caused by folks rushing with panic to the hospital; let alone the ill health effects of folks who avoid enjoying the great outdoors out of fears of bee death.
So it is with Ebola. Yes, we don't know everything about it yet. But as the Greatest Generation would no doubt remind us, it's our civic duty to remain calm in the face of this unknown. Don't be fooled by media outlets and websites going for cheap clicks. For Heaven's sake, don't be the person spreading information that incites panic. Don't be a sucker for folks pushing a political agenda and re-tell half truths.
Most of all, in the age of social media and lightning-quick news, bring out your inner scientist, please. Be skeptical of all claims. Don't engage in data abuse. Be reasonable about the numbers. Remember Stalin's apocryphal quote: "One death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic." That is ever truer today, because in the age of Facebook, one death can go viral and capture imaginations like never before. In the digital age, the most virulent malady is fear.
When deciding what you should be afraid of today, Ebola is still pretty low down on the list, down near slipping in the shower or school shootings or dying from a bee sting. While it's entirely possible death Ebola via in the U.S. could become more likely than those things, it's hard to imagine it will become as deadly as driving. And none of you are tossing your car keys.
Two very good things can come of the Ebola sensation, however. First off, now that it is on U.S. soil, the ongoing tragedy in Africa will get much more of the attention it deserves. And second, it's a fresh chance for all of us to reasonablely consider the risky things we do in all our lives, and change our behavior accordingly. So here's an invitation: The next time you think about posting a scary Ebola story, how about taking a jog around the block first?