Academic

Faculty Blogs: Don't Panic: Facts versus Rumor Regarding the Swine Flu

With the 24-hour news media in full-lather and the #swineflu hashtag trending to the top of Twitter Search, as a information professional I feel impelled to rap my ruler sharply on the table and tell everyone to calm down and get the facts! Luckily, there is a place for this, the CDC Swine Flu page at the website of the federally-funded Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in Atlanta. Another source of information is the English language version of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Disease Outbreak News webpage.

Of course, if you really want to panic, please feel free to Google "swine flu plot."  A recent search showed pages linking the outbreak to separate conspiracies launched by "the Jews," Satan, the CIA, anti-immigrant groups from the US far right, and the American pharmaceutical industry. The Freemasons, the Vatican, Queen Elizabeth and Al-Qaeda need to step up their game...

Full post as published by University of Louisville Law Faculty on April 27, 2009 (boomark / email).