“‘There is no death, daughter. People die only when we forget them,’ my mother explained shortly before she left me. ‘If you can remember me, I will be with you always.'”

-Isabel Allende

The victims of the 2005 avian flu epidemic and the 2009 swine flu pandemic have no monuments, no museums, no days of remembrance. Yet, these two outbreaks captured the attentions of the world and affected millions of people. How can so many victims simply disappear into history, only to be remembered by their immediate families? These questions kept creeping into my thoughts as I researched the media’s portrayal of the two disasters. More specifically, I kept wondering why there were so few names behind the numbers of those affected. It all seemed very impersonal, like those affected were simply numbers. During these outbreaks, the governments of countries where people were affected worked hard to prevent the release of information about the victims, using case numbers to report the outbreaks’ latest incidences and, in many cases, simply telling the media the gender, age, and approximate location of victims. However, assigning numbers to people seemed, to me, to label them in terms of the outbreaks that killed them, failing to recognize them as individuals behind their infections. By amassing the victims into quantifiable numbers, it seemed that the media had not only depersonalized and dehumanized them, but done so to further This blog will be an attempt to create a memorial in miniature to the many affected by the outbreaks by discussing the lives of a Turkish family victimized by avian flu and two individuals victimized by swine flu.

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