Swine flu: the latest

Worried about swine flu? Of course you are: the media have cranked up their latest round of scaremongering, with fear-inducing headlines and poorly researched, sensationalist stories plastered over the tabloids on a daily basis. And it is scary, but only because catching any kind of flu is one of the more unpleasant experiences you will ever have. I’ve had flu twice, I believe, in my life – and that’s two times too many. Bedridden, sweat-soaked, shivering, feverish… generally miserable for the week or so it took to run its course. But – I’ve said this before and will keep saying it – the vast majority of people who have contracted swine flu say the symptoms are not as severe as a bad cold even, let alone your common-or-garden seasonal flu. And all but one of the people who have died from it in the UK have had a serious underlying health condition, been pregnant or have recently given birth (and so have had an immune system suppressed by their body so they didn’t reject the baby during pregnancy).

The vaccine our Government has desperately, and far too hastily, rushed through is causing a great deal of controversy among medical experts – many of whom say they will not have the jab because they don’t trust it. And the two main antivirals, Tamiflu and Relenza, are basically useless, and may produce side-effects far worse than the virus itself. In fact, as this powerful and incisive piece in today’s Observer makes clear, the only beneficiary of the swine flu hysteria has been big pharma, which has made vast profits on the back of it.

Sickening, isn’t it?