Media sensationalism, corporate power and the swine flu outbreak

The handling of the swine flu outbreak underscores the difficulty, in the present political environment, of separating medical science from corporate interests and the political agendas of governments that are beholden to them. The matter has been both sensationalized and mystified, to the detriment of any rational response to the health threat posed by swine flu.
The mass media and public authorities, particularly in the United States, have now subjected the population to constant, breathless coverage of the swine flu epidemic for over a week. But for all the hours of television reportage and reams of press commentary, little light has been shed on the nature of the virus or the underlying conditions of poverty and decay of the social infrastructure that play a huge role in the potential human toll of such a flu outbreak, should it, in fact, develop into a global pandemic.
On April 30, the media reported that the World Health Organization (WHO) was expected to soon designate the swine flu as a full pandemic, at level six on the WHO's six-point scale. WHO director-general Margaret Chan declared, "It is really all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic."
Shortly afterwards, however, the WHO said that it would continue to use the term "pandemic" even if "the new virus turns out to cause mainly mild symptoms."

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