Swine flu: now we blame the animals…
Can’t work out whether to be terrified by the latest disease apparently sweeping the planet. Gordon Brown is going to write to us all this week, apparently. And there’s alarming suggestions by the WHO that “up to” 40% people will “be affected”. Is it all just hype and media excitement?
It strikes me that these pandemics used to be called things like Russian flu, Asian flu, Spanish flu, Hong Kong flu. But in these more enlightened times, would it seem racist to classify them by Where They Came From, is that the problem? So now we call these diseases Bird flu, Swine flu… Yeah, blame the animals, they won’t get offended!