This week’s terrorist attacks in Boston brought many emotions out from people in the city, the nation and the world. In the aftermath I was amazed and humbled by the courage, compassion and integrity show by millions of citizens, health care providers and law enforcement officials. May God bless the victims.
In addition to those emotions the attacks this week made me think a lot about risk in a more rational way. The public health professional in me can not help but look at things from the big picture side and make a tangible analysis of the benefits and the harms in any situation.
Of the 600,000 or so individuals who watched the Marathon in person last Monday only a very small percentage were harmed by the attacks. Obviously one was too many, but extrapolating that further hundreds of millions and millions of Americans who have attended public gatherings in the past ten years in major cities have gone largely unharmed until Monday. Public events are extremely safe in terms of ratio of injuries and illness to hours of exposure time. Most of us are going to do things in the next week (like drive a car, take an opiate medicine or antibiotic, go skydiving, go for a bike ride or eat a cheeseburger) that are much, much more likely to cause harm to ourselves or a loved one than terrorism.
If it is not tangible risk of harm that pushes our fear button then what is it? It is a well known psychological phenomenon that human beings assess risk and danger more on emotional than rational terms. It is why people like me are irrationally scared to fly (one of the safest things a person can do according to a huge body of numbers) while I routinely drive on freeways or go running alone in the woods and never even think about the much greater dangers. Evolution programmed us to assess danger based on the hills and valleys of our psyche and not on the cold, hard numbers because when we were still animals in trees such impromptu calculations were all we had.
Terrorism is frightening not because it is likely to kill us, but because of the mental and emotional imagery it creates and what that symbolizes. Dozens of people in America will have limbs amputated in the next few weeks from car accidents, but the unfortunate ones who suffer from an explosion in the heart of a major city, during a major event and with the eyes of the world watching provide terrifying imagery that stimulates our primitive fear. One million reckless drivers in pick up trucks driving 75 miles an hour while talking on their mobile phones for an hour every day for a year will create far, far more amputations, brain injuries, deaths and overall suffering than the horror on Monday did, but most of us will never see the imagery that results from these harmful actions and even if we do it lacks symbolic triggers that make our brains tune in to fear.
3 people died from the bombs on Monday and it was awful, but 37,000 people (most of them young) die in cars every year. What about the 500,000 who die of cardiovascular disease? The 51,000 that die of influenza? Or the 31,000 people, about 85 people per day, that die in gun violence in 2010 (or the 73,505 who had gun injuries)? 5 Michigan Football Stadiums of children (about 500,000) worldwide go blind from Vitamin A Deficiency every year and according to the CDC 70% of them die within one year. Who even worries about Vitamin A deficiency around here?
Are those deaths any less meaningful? Any less senseless? Any less preventable? Are most of those people any less human or innocent?
On Monday to see that many young and innocent people killed or maimed at once was gruesome and unfair. I too got afraid and emotional, but I could not help noticing how people justifiably reacted to this tragedy while ignoring so much preventable suffering that we consider routine.
If we assessed risk and suffering based on actual data, we would also get sentimental about motor vehicle accidents, the obesity epidemic, nutrition, influenza or any number or things. This is not to triviliaze the horror of Monday or to de-value the symbolic currency of attacks on “our” nation by “outsiders”, but merely to suggest that the best way to honor the victims of undue human suffering is take action to prevent further human suffering. In contrast to terrorism, it is a suffering that happens in a silent but equally devastating way every day in our world but it is every bit as real. If you were one of the millions motivated by seeing the injustice and horror of lives cut short Monday than in addition to the USA chants, the tough words, the posts on Facebook, and the flag waving and honor the victims in the best and only way possible: Live in a way that respects every life, every second of every day.
Live to respect life.
Start with driving, because statistics show driving is one of the most dangerous things Americans do on a daily basis. From now on drive humanely. As a physician I am amazed by the savagery and brutality I see on our roads and highways every day. Do people not realize when they turn the key to their ignition they are engaging in a behavior that kills tens of thousands of human beings (mostly young) each year and seriously injures many more?
After Monday, If you agree that it is horrible to see young people killed or injured then please drive safely tomorrow. You may not be a “terrorist” but if you drive drunk, text on your phone or drive recklessly you are contributing to a problem that is going to kill and maime more people than Monday’s attacks did. If in honor of Monday’s victims we pledged to drive safe, sober and avoided distracted driving we would save dozens of lives in this country a day! What better way to honor the victims than by reducing or eliminating the suffering of others?
Vaccinate your children. Don’t take drugs. Give money to charity at home and abroad. Exercise. Feed yourself and your family healthy food (Do you realize how many thousands of children are going to die or get disabled from the Diabetes epidemic rising in our nation?). Don’t play around with guns in the home. These are some the things that contribute to the killing and maiming of innocent people on a massive scale but lack the grandoise imagery that gets our attention. Honor Monday’s attack victims and all those who suffer not just by waving the flag or singing sentimental songs at sporting events (don’t get me wrong all that is well and good) but by living consciously.
As the old saying goes “Be the Change You Want to See In the World.” On Monday we were all confronted with horror and we are programmed to respond to the frightening imagery. If you were moved by what you saw than the best response is to take actions to reduce and prevent human suffering of all kinds in everything we do. In that way we best honor the tragedy we saw last week.
