Is The News Making Us Sick?

It began one morning with two seemingly unrelated items: a story about mountain climbing on BBC Future and a panel from the comics section of the newspaper.

The BBC article, “The placebo effect is well known for its medical benefits, but there is evidence it could give athletes an edge, too,” began with an experiment where mountain climbers were given oxygen to boost physical performance at high altitudes. In a laboratory simulation, they were first given tanks of oxygen to improve performance. When they were later given empty tanks, their brains expected similar improvement and caused the body to adjust appropriately.

It went on to explain how placebos like this can improve athletic performance in other areas, for example, sugar pills believed to be performance enhancing drugs could have the same effect. 

The effectiveness of placebos applies to many areas. A summary of studies shows that “antidepressants are effective for depression about 31-70% of the time, while placebos are effective 12-50% of the time…. So, while antidepressants appear more effective than placebo, only a fraction of the benefit we see in patients is likely from a direct neurobiological impact of the medication itself.” Effectiveness depends on the amount of faith patients have in the product. Placebos taken as part of a test of more powerful drugs tend to have more powerful effects; and patients often report some of the same side effect as the drug itself.

This led me to another BBC article explaining the opposite effect, sometimes called nocebo. In this example the treatment was merely the words the doctor used. The doctor, talking about serious osteoarthritis, says that he has “bad news,” that the knees are “worn out” and the medicine may “help a bit,” but may damage the stomach lining. The doctor has set the patient up to expect the worst. This kind of presentation can unintentionally cause the brain to deliver the opposite of a placebo effect: less positive, possibly negative, outcomes.

A conclusion is “when prescribing treatments, the doctor should emphasise the positive effects of the medicine, while framing the negative side-effects so they seem less frightening, and being careful not to over-emphasise their risks.” They should be honest, but with an optimistic tone.

This led to yet another BBC article, this one from 2015, about how negative thoughts and ideas can not only make you sick, but actually kill you. This effect applies to any authority figure or respected expert, not just doctors. “In the same way that voodoo shamans could harm their victims through the power of suggestion, priming someone to think they are ill can often produce the actual symptoms of a disease.” Hence, people can die of fright or become sicker based on the message and their faith in the authority of the messenger.

Each of these articles is interesting, but coincidentally they came to my attention on the day I saw “The Flying McCoys” at the bottom of the page of an on-line newspaper. The idea is almost too true and too common to be funny and typical of many news programs.

Based on the information above, what is this doing to the overall health of the American people, this constant barrage of fears and anxiety over the virus and whether opening the economy too soon will be a mistake, the emphasis on the ever increasing number of cases and deaths, the constant skepticism about the actions and predictions of the task force, the criticism of any encouraging remarks – especially if they turn out to be overly optimistic; and for years now, fanning the flames of  divisiveness within the country – all with the express intention of putting us on edge, amplifying the fear and anxiety to get everyone to continue to tune in. 

Remember, placebo, the strong mind-body connection cuts both ways. Between the news media, social media and politicians, it’s surprising we are not all physical and emotional wrecks.

The news can be both addictive and unhealthy. One defense is to watch less. Another is to use critical thinking and see it for what it is, big business trying to attract “eyeballs,” and act accordingly, increase our skepticism, lessen our faith in the source and discount their predictions of a fearful outcome at every turn. 

100,000 Deaths from COVID-19!

Last Tuesday as rumors of new guidelines asking everyone to wear facemasks spread, I decided to watch the Task Force briefing. There was no such guidance at that time, but I was impressed by how the reporters never seem to listen to the speakers. Are they distracted by the opportunity to ask their prepared questions and ability to get airtime? I spent a good deal of the time telling the TV, “They just said that!”

In any case the first question was about one of the graphs projecting 100,000 to 240,000 deaths, even with full mitigation. This was a modeling result and was in no way guaranteed. No one asked about confidence in the model or how it could change. They just focused on the numbers, because they are scary numbers. The primary reason for the question appeared to be to get the president to say the number, so they could pin it on him. He handed it off to Dr. Birx to show the chart again and repeat the projection.

The next day those scary numbers were all over the news. CBS said, "The White House projects 100,000 to 240,000 Americans will die from coronavirus if ‘full mitigation’ measures are taken.” NBC called it a “dire warning” and only used the upper limit of the projection. ABC chimed in with, “Grim Trump, doctors say prepare for potential 100K to 240K deaths.” That story emphasized the president “abruptly” changing his mind when given new information – I wonder what ABC does when they get new information. 

I cite the mainstream media here, because so many editorials like to pick only on “cable news” when criticizing incomplete or slanted coverage.

Now let’s do what neither the media nor the task force made an effort to do, put it in perspective.

First, are all these incremental deaths? – Probably not. Some of the people who die from the virus would likely have died anyway, especially those in nursing homes. In addition, with so many people staying home, traffic deaths and other accidental deaths may be avoided, but all deaths will be recorded as virus-related and extraordinary.

Second, America is a land of big numbers. The government just passed a law to spend a huge amount, over $2 trillion! Each year Americans drive over 3 trillion miles, personal and commercial, and 2.8 million babies are born. It wasn’t too long ago we were stressing over news like this, “more than 130 people in the United States die of an opioid overdose every day.” And today: “School closures due to coronavirus have impacted at least 124,000 U.S. public and private schools and affected at least 55.1 million students.” The CDC considers over 107 million American adults obese. In America, charities, activists and politicians wanting to raise money, awareness or votes easily find such big numbers to elicit support. 

The CDC estimates 24,000 to 62,000 deaths from the flu this last season, and that’s with a vaccine available. In 2018, the number was 55,672 from flu and pneumonia. If we had 100,000 deaths from coronavirus in 2018 (the last year with complete numbers), it would have ranked seventh among leading causes of death just ahead of Diabetes. 

In fact the total number of deaths in the US from all causes was 2,813,503. On average over 234,000 people die every month from other causes. It’s all counted in big numbers.

Relative to some of these numbers, 100,000 across the entire population is not that large; but taken by itself it can be scary. The task force uses it without perspective to motivate people, to shock them into doing the right thing. The media piles on by using it without perspective to attract viewers and to sell newspapers.

We should be able to cooperate in the containment effort without fear and be able to stay calm knowing the media agenda is to upset us enough to ensure we buy more of what they are selling. But that's not what's happening.

Coronavirus Fears

The fears, more so than the virus, are leading people to do strange things. The toilet paper and bottled water hoarding is just one example. I stopped by the grocery store today and it was packed at 1:30 in the afternoon. Schools announced they would shut down for 2 weeks to disinfect, and apparently what you do when the schools are closed to keep the kids from infecting each other is take them to a crowded grocery store instead.

And what the schools are disinfecting is a mystery, since there have been no reported cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in this or any of the surrounding counties. But I guess the schools will be as germ-free as they have ever been.

I don’t think the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is doing anyone any favors. He is undoubtedly very knowledgeable on the subject, but his bedside manner leaves something to be desired. With the country in a panic he told Congress, “things will get worse than they are right now. ”

That is the direct truth, perhaps a little too direct. It is understandable from a purely clinical point of view that diseases spread, especially in a population without immunity, but words like that don’t do anything to get people to calm down. They have the opposite effect (to the great delight of the news media). 

So here is another way to think about it. America is very likely better at dealing with such a problem than China. The first case in China was traced to November 17 of last year.

By February 29, we were seeing headlines like this from NPR: “As New Coronavirus Cases Slow In China, Factories Start Reopening.” They were still having some economic problems, but the future seemed brighter.

By March 12 Reuters was reporting: “The Chinese city of Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak, reported just five new cases on Friday, the second day in a row the tally has been less than 10, while no locally transmitted infections were reported in the rest of the country.” Less than four months after the initial outbreak they seemed to be getting a handle on the problem.

That should be encouraging for the rest of us. Though it will likely get worse as Dr. Fauci stated, the first case of coronavirus was already detected in the US just about two months ago. “On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a 4-day history of cough and subjective fever.”

Now extrapolation can be a little dangerous, and no one can guarantee that we will be out of the woods less than two months from now. But judging from progression of the disease in China and subsequently in Italy, it seems like a decent assumption. Whether it is or not remains to be seen, but taking that point of view is certainly more comforting (and realistic) than listening to the evening news and then hauling the kids off to the store to buy more toilet paper.