Is Anyone Profitting From Swine Flu?

Even though a third Israeli has been confirmed as being sick with "swine flu," Israeli medical authorities aren't worried. It doesn't seem as serious as expected.

According to Ruthie Blum Leibowitz, of the Jerusalem Post, it wasn't all that obvious to the Israeli media how much to hype the virus.

When the first reports of swine flu in Mexico emerged last Saturday, two local colleagues each told me separately that there was no way he was going to lead with that item.
One, in broadcast journalism, pooh-poohed it as "hype" that would dissipate before the week was over, due to its having been blown way out of proportion. "And if there's no Jewish angle," he quipped, "it's of even less interest."
The other, a wire-service editor, pointed to it as a perfect example of the press's penchant for creating - or at least contributing to - panic. "I'm not going to be party to that," he asserted.

The International Herald Tribune didn't ignore it at all. Here are a couple of front pages from this week.





And here's a picture from the Jerusalem Post's site tonight:

Today at our Shabbat table, swine flu was on the conversation menu, not on the eating menu. Taking account the big picture of world health and all, swine flu is really "small potatoes." Our guest mentioned that many thousands die every year from malaria. The money being pumped into the swine flu vaccine research could do a lot more use and save more lives if used to combat other illnesses.

This little video, I found on Seraphi Secret, puts it in proportion:

We began to wonder who was really benefiting from this panic. Look at the pictures, and you'll see what we think. Which industry?

Swine Flu, A PR-Caused Panic?

I've been ignoring the swine flu. Maybe, you'd say, because of the name "swine," pig, an animal I, a Torah observant Jew, wouldn't eat. But as news spreads about the spread of the virus to New York, where I have to visit this summer, I've begun to wonder.

Will there be a pandemic? Will it be over by July?

Actually, if I could travel to New York by boat, like we did when we made aliyah to Israel in 1970, I'd feel a lot safer. There's nothing less healthy than an airplane, those flying boxes with recycled air. By the time you land, you've breathed in everybody's exhaled air. Even if it's filtered, how often is the filter changed and what does it filter out?

Is there anything we can do to protect ourselves? Or is this just a panic over nothing?

For the new swine influenza virus, it is too soon to know the answers. And as scientists are all too keenly aware, they have been wrong before.
In 1976, after a small outbreak of swine influenza at Fort Dix in New Jersey, public-health officials persuaded President Gerald R. Ford and Congress to mount a nationwide immunization campaign that came in for widespread criticism. Yet 60 years earlier, an influenza virus that apparently started as a mild outbreak in the spring came back in a giant storm months later.

The swine flu may just be a big nothing, only modern testing techniques have given it such early publicity. Or, considering how much people travel nowadays, it may G-d forbid be horrendously deadly.

Or will the stress and worry over it cause more medical problems than the notorious virus?