Be very scared, argues Robin Cook, in this essay in the Nov/Dec issue of Foreign policy. Somebody, he says, needs to write a gripping, mega-selling novel to shake up the complacent public about the high risk of an imminent, serious pandemic. And I don’t mean the much-publicized swine flu. While the world media has obsessed,…Continue Reading…
Kudos to Curtis Brainard over at The Observatory for his criticism of the media’s latest round of “overly alarming” swine flu coverage, which was driven by the recent White House report. As Brainard notes, The worst offender was perhaps USA Today. The White House report clearly states””many times, and at one point in big, capital…Continue Reading…
Are we on the cusp of revolutionizing the scientific method, or merely speeding up the scientific process? Either way, this is a fascinating post by Carl Zimmer on how scientists used a wiki to collaborate in real time on the swine flu virus and then publish their results a little more than a month later…Continue Reading…
From pandemic panic to party mode–all in one week.
Mexico may still be in lockdown mode, but I suspect American fears of swine flu are ebbing. Alas, we may have only a short reprieve before pandemics starting hitting with regularity, warns epidemiologist Larry Brilliant in the WSJ weekend edition: In our lifetimes, or our children’s lifetimes, we will face a broad array of dangerous…Continue Reading…
The N.Y. Times carried this front-page headline (and sub-hed) today: Containing Flu Is Not Feasible, Specialists Say They Urge a Strategy of Mitigating Effects How long before we see an identical hed and sub-hed, with just one word change: Containing Flu Climate Change is Not Feasible, Specialists say I’m not suggesting, just wondering…
After SARS hysteria swept through the media in 2003, David Rothkopf, writing in The Washington Post, called it an “information epidemic”–or “infodemic.” He defined “infodemic” as thus: A few facts, mixed with fear, speculation and rumor, amplified and relayed swiftly worldwide by modern information technologies, have affected national and international economies, politics and even security…Continue Reading…
Howie Kurtz at The Washington Post seems to think so.
Right now the biggest contagion is fear. So if you’re looking for varied, broader perspective, the N.Y. Times provides it here.
In the coming days, lots of people are going to be dazed and confused (and increasingly edgy) from the Swine Flu-athon already in media overdrive. I’ve been trolling around for a one-stop shop that offers virus authority in a readable, lighthearted manner. Maggie Koerth-Baker to the rescue, courtesy of boingboing.