statistics and epidemics

Today I learned that Washington, D.C., has an HIV/AIDS epidemic. The rate of infection is 3%, and the cut-off for being labeled an epidemic is 1%. Now, at first I was thinking that maybe to have an epidemic, you had to have a communicable disease, but my husband pointed out that we have an obesity epidemic, so now I want to know why MCS has not been labeled an epidemic. A prominent doctor and author who has MCS wanted to know the same thing all the way back in 2000.

President Obama, we as a population are sitting and/or lying around (each to his own ability) collecting disability and not buying much other than organic food. We'd buy more, but disability doesn't pay and we can't go into stores, anyway. More of us will not make the economy better, but you can create jobs, lots of jobs, trying to look after us. The lady who lives in her car (and has brain damage from insecticide) could probably drive three full-time caregivers to distraction all by herself, but if there were chemically safe places to go or maybe even work, our taxes could go to supporting the three full-time caregivers for that lady, assuming you could keep any of those positions filled. I'm betting they'd turn over faster than clothes in a dryer.