It’s been a busy week, with constant updates on the progress of the H1N1 infection (swine flu). Nothing sells a story like fear. How much of what we’re hearing is just media noise? Is the flu really changing most of our lives in any substantive way? Will it? Who’s afraid, and who’s not? Here’s a random sample of fact, speculation, and opinion we came across today.   

A rant: “All pigs are men: why we need to learn to manage infodemics, too…”

From the Wall Street Journal Health Blog, an interesting angle on numbers and severity: “Why Does the Flu Seem More Severe in Mexico: Here’s a Clue.”

Curtis Brainard of the Columbia Journalism Review writes that “blogs have called upon mainstream media to investigate the potential role of large factory farms in breeding and spreading the virus” in Mexico.

A cranky reality check from the nursing trenches: “What kind of country of dummies have we become when the PRESIDENT has to go on TV and tell us to WASH OUR HANDS and COVER OUR MOUTHS when we cough?”

Lastly, some sensible thinking on personal preparedness from Christine Gorman at Global Health Report.

-Jacob Molyneux, AJN senior editor, and Joy Jacobson, AJN managing editor