Deadly disease kills 7 this year…

Apparently, 7 people in the entire state of Illinois have died of West Nile Virus in 2007…

WARNING: RANT AHEAD

Seven people within the state of Illinois have died because of a simple thing but difficult to prevent thing like a mosquito bite. This is tragic.

BUT

Cancer – 204.1 deaths per 100,000 people died in 2004 Link
Anorexia Nervosa – In the United States of America, between 758,000 and 1.5 MILLION people will die from subsequent health problems caused by this disease (malnutrition, starvation, etc).
(Given that there are 298,444,215 people in the U.S.A, and that 151,783,235 are women Link). This estimate does not include the 5% of anorexia nervosa suffers that are male. Link
Heart Attacks - approx 460,000 people die every year. Link
Lung Disease – 360,000+ people die every year Link
Smoking – 298,000+ people die from smoking Link
Automobile accidents –42,815 people died in 2002 Link
Alzheimer’s –22.4 deaths per 100,000 people Link
AIDS – 16,000 people died of AIDS in 2005. Link
Falling down – 11,600 people over the age of 65 died from this alone!
Old Age – You are not legally allowed to die of Old Age or Natural Causes anymore Link

I mean no disrespect to anyone who has died of a mosquito bite. It is tragically ironic to die from one of the ‘cons’ of leading a healthy and active life in the great outdoors.

But why is the news dialing up the national fear level about mosquito’s? West Nile Virus doesn’t even rate the top 20 things that I can die of by waking up and going to work every day. I used to smoke, I am overweight, I drive a car, I used stairs, mass transportation and have been known to walk around outside during a thunderstorm. Yet of all these things, the most newsworthy story has to do with a mosquito-born virus that I would have greater odds in winning a state lottery than contracting.

THIS is why I stopped watching the news. How do the networks who put out this drivel expect to gain the public trust? Better yet, why in the world does the public actually trust these driveling idiots?