farmdoc's blog post number 472

In times gone by, social trends were fairly hard to determine. Finding out about them required expensive and complex instruments including surveys, focus groups and diaries. However nowadays it’s much easier. And free of charge. Courtesy of Google. Of course. Who else? In the USA, a massive 75% of the 10 billion internet searches each month, occur via google.com [1] That’s 750 billion Google searches; only in the USA; and only in a month. So it’s not a giant leap of faith to a conclusion that Google searches reflect society reasonably accurately. With this in mind, I’m fascinated by this 28 July Age item providing, in each of seven categories, Google Australia’s top ten fastest rising searches for 2009 so far. See what you think about the results. To me it confirms my theory that swine flu’s a scare mongering beat-up. But I can’t understand Australians’ pre-occupation with Susan Boyle (pictured) and Masterchef. And I find it incredible that the fastest rising website search is for the Australian Tax Office’s. One of the common criticisms of social inquiry is that it’s a waste of time because it’s all commonsense anyway. Well maybe. And perhaps too, the fastest rising Google search categories are of no practical use. But to me as a list-man, these lists are of curious interest. If nothing more. And they drive home to me that in this 2009 world, I’m a sheep man in cattle country. Ho hum.

farmdoc's blog post number 468

Today’s the first day of the last month of the 2009 winter. In Mole Creek it’s still dark, cold and wet. Yet here I am writing about a fire brigade/bushfire topic. Again. For the third time in the past four days. The winter must be getting to my brain. Is it seasonal affective disorder? Though the next fire season’s months away, the Mole Creek brigade still trains twice each month – for our skills rust if we don’t polish them; and we have new members to absorb into our team. Whilst we train, we chat. And each winter much of the chat’s about how bad the next fire season’ll be. The prediction’s always bad. If the weather’s dry, then it’ll be bad because the fuel load will be dry. Tinder dry. (The adjective ‘tinder’ always precedes ‘dry’. Here is the definition of ‘tinder.) Or if the weather’s wet – like this winter is – then it’ll be bad because more plant growth means a heavier fuel load. So it’ll be bad whatever the weather. It’s a no-win scenario. So I’ve stopped talking, and worrying, about it. Whatever will be, will be. Even so, I was interested to read this in last Wednesday’s Age. Blimey. Last season’s devastating Victorian bushfires were the worst in recorded history; yet they’re predicting the coming season’s conditions will be even worse. It’s hard to understand. I wonder if it’s not a beat-up – the bushfire equivalent of swine flu – to goad people into adequately preparing. I’ll bet you anything the coming season’s fires will be trivial compared with last season’s. Time will tell.

farmdoc's blog post number 449

I’ve previously written of ‘disease mongering’ – i.e. the creation of medical ‘diseases’ for commercial gain, aka the medicalisation of the human condition. In a letter in the May Internal Medicine Journal, disease mongering’s described as a ‘tripodal monster’ whose three legs are the drug companies, people eager to be patients, and doctors eager to be deities. The letter recommends any would-be doctor deity to link up with a politician to maximise publicity and thus influence. One of my nephews has swine flu. Because it’s a real disease, swine flu’s not a classic mongered disease. But it’s a cousin. Promotion of swine flu increases the demand for anti-viral drugs (Relenza and Tamiflu) and thus the profits of their makers; it turns public health doctors into media deities; and it allows politicians media coverage to issue forth on a topic they know little about, giving them a false aura of importance and competence. Swine flu is a pandemic, but geographic extent isn’t correlated with severity. This Google site shows that the number of flu cases in Australia this season’s no greater than in prior years. And I’ll bet you anything the number of flu deaths this year’s no higher either. Yet the media attention given to swine flu’s preposterous; and it frightens a public that has little or no grasp of what’s going on. In short, I think swine flu’s a beat up. But all this is not to diminish your illness, Ro. I hope you recover soon, mate.