Swine Flu "Pandemic": Much ado about nothing

I'm not a doctor.

I don't even play one on TV.

That said, the news media is whipping up the populace into a foaming frenzy about the possibility of a pandemic swine flu outbreak. Last I heard, some 80+ Mexican citizens have died from it, surprisingly from what is usually the most robust segment of the population (not young/not old). This leads medical experts to believe that they expect to see a wave of deaths take out the young and elderly in the not too distant future. I do not want you to think I am trivializing their deaths or the misery that afflicts those suffering from this illness. I am not. For the families of those who have died, the cause of death is an incidental factoid

There have been some outbreaks in the US and a few small outbreaks in Canada and New Zealand, with no reported fatalities in these countries. I suspect it's due to the advance awareness these countries have regarding the sickness, and their ability to isolate the sick from the healthy. This is all good news.

That said, if this really was going to go global on a massive scale, the numbers of afflicted would be a lot bigger, and the number of deaths would be much greater. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimate that 9 THOUSAND people die every year as a result of food poisoning.

While it's important to take precautions (we all know that flowing from both ends is no fun), the media is trying to make a news story bigger than it is in the interest of garnering big ratings.

Sad, really.