Ebola Anxiety Disorder - Health professionals predict onslaught of nervous patients

Fear causes hypertension.
Hypertension is the number one killer.

Just look at some of the headlines geared to instill anxiety, condition people to be scared...

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CYNTHIA TUCKER: Fear and anxiety are bigger threats than Ebola

Fear is one of the most powerful of human emotions

Still, judging from the news media, lots of my professional colleagues have seen “Last Ship” and “Outbreak.” They’re in full panic mode, hyping the threat and speculating about the possibility of a global pandemic that swamps the Western world as it has West Africa. That hysteria has only increased since Thomas Eric Duncan died last week in a Dallas hospital, becoming the first Ebola fatality in the United States.

As Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University, told The New York Times, “… at the moment, we have a much larger outbreak of anxiety than we have of Ebola.”

But the 24-hour news cycle also demands hysteria, whether from liberal commentators or conservatives. Fear is one of the most powerful of human emotions, and it drives eyeballs to the TV screen and clicks online. If there is no genuine crisis, a manufactured one will have to do.

[link to www.albanyherald.com]

Ebola Fears Are Triggering Mass Hypochondria

In a way, what we’re seeing here is hypochondria manifested on a mass scale, said Catherine F. Belling, an associate professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine, who has written a book on hypochondria. “I know that there are a lot of people, clearly, who are very anxious and panicking at this point, who maybe don’t altogether trust what the CDC is saying,” she said. “And they’re worried that it’s out in America now, instead of being far away in Africa.” We tend to think of hypochondriacs as the irrational individuals who, after spending entirely too much time on WebMD, become convinced that a minor headache means a brain tumor, or that a lingering cough means lung cancer. But that anxiety and fear some of us are having over catching Ebola (a highly unlikely health outcome) That’s hypochondria, too, Belling explained.

What is it about Ebola in particular that is sparking anxiety, especially in those prone to hypochondria?
With Ebola, you have the elements of a horror story, That’s the image people have of this thing, that it’s something that can turn you into some kind of monster. I think that’s what’s kind of special about Ebola, as opposed to something we should truly be worried about, like drug-resistant bacteria, for example.

There’s a very special sense of horror that’s attached to Ebola, and before now, it’s been sort of alien. And now it’s here. And I think that has captured imaginations in a scary kind of way.

[link to nymag.com]

SWINE FLU HYSTERIA in the 70's:

ebola panic goes viral. no pun intended...

I have EAD. Should I try for disability and a case against MSLSD, CNN, FOX?

why not. good idea. they did it to you.