Swine flu?

[tracilicious]

Opinions?

[Alex]

I'm opposed.

[Snowflake]

No messing with my bacon, please

[wendybeth]

Sort of scary, but not nearly as much as FoxNews is freaking out about. Personally, I think it's milder here in the US because we already probably had a variant of it this winter- the kick ass flu bug we had running rampant up here in Washington sounds very much like this new one, and I know of at least ten people who developed pneumonia from it. Of course, I could be in denial over the seriousness of it, but so far I'm just not hugely worried. I do feel badly for the people in Mexico, though.

[Melonballer]

[Bornieo: Fully Loaded]

We're all going to die. Me more than you.

[scaeagles]

Swine Flu 2009 = Bird Flu of whatever year it was.

[blueerica]

Gah - CNN was going crazy over it. I didn't even know it was such a big deal until yesterday.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by blueerica

Gah - CNN was going crazy over it. I didn't even know it was such a big deal until yesterday.

Yeah - It's certainly far more the Fox News freaking out over it.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by scaeagles

Swine Flu 2009 = Bird Flu of whatever year it was.

Here's the thing.

When these things don't turn into epidemics/pandemics, everyone's quick to say, "What the hell was all the hubub about? The CDC is full of sh*t, scaring us for no good reason."

But no one ever seems to stop and think that the reason it doesn't become pandemic is because the CDC did it's job, got the word out, people took more care, and they were able to do their job to control things.

The hype certainly does get out of control. And it is hard to know whether anything really was stopped or if it's a "I've got a rock in my pocket that prevents tiger attacks, and it's been 100% effective," situation. But the reality is, IF bird flu, sars, swine flu, whatever is a disease with the potential to go pandemic, then the way to prevent it is to make as many people aware of it as quickly as possible.

Again, I know that it gets translated in media into a level of fear and paranoia that is not really warranted. But there's not much that can be done about that. And just because certain people can't separate "awareness and caution" from "all out fear and paranoia" doesn't change the fact that it IS important to make the population aware so as to ensure that all out fear and paranoia aren't warranted.